Children of Men

Harlan Ellison once remarked that the challenge of writing science-fiction is that you have to explain everything. Set in the UK in the year 2027, Children of Men brilliantly imagines a decaying dystopia in which the human race has become infertile, humanity and our civilization is slowly dying, and Britain has descended into an ugly fascist enclave barricaded against immigrants who it heartlessy hunts down and dumps into refugee camps to be executed or lost among the human detritus. The film avoids unnecessary narrative devices to explicate the setting, instead choosing to immerse and surround the viewer, trusting in their intelligence, and delivering a deceptively simple story with tremendous momentum and visual ingenuity.

Clive Owen plays Theo, a civil servant with past ties to a 'terrorist' army fighting for the rights of immigrants, who is enlisted by this army to take a pregnant woman, Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) to the coast to meet a ship belonging to the enigmatic 'Human Project.' On this dolorous odyssey Theo enlists the help of past-radical Jasper (Michael Caine, in a terrific performance) and runs afoul of treachery and capricious violence from all directions in this world gone to hell.

With astonishing command of cinematic language, director Alfonso Cuarón takes this story that is simultaneously simple and complex, and makes it sing with a voice that is spare, brutal, and starkly poetic. Boldy shot with long takes and handheld camera, the film is startlingly real and alive while expressionistic in its striking artistic landscapes of the digital-concrete urban nightmare (a witty visual refrence to the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals is the most memorable example). The washed, muted grey colour of the film and the textured grime of the astonishing production design paint a despairing portrait of the decay and downfall of all mankind has wrought. Children of Men is also punctuated by several utterly gripping action sequences, one a brilliant single-take shot that, for several minutes, follows two main characters through an ugly urban war in a refugee camp.

Like V for Vendetta, several aspects of the zeitgeist imbrue the intricate details of the film. It's envisioning of a brutal neo-fascist state held together by xenophobic, dictatorial law enforced through violence and racism is a logical extension of some of the worst current sociopolitical trends. The chaotic hell of Brexhill refugee camp, its intake haunted by the sight of certain individuals summarily removed, hooded, and executed, is society devolving to a state of primal, tribal dehumanization.

Such a context of hopelessness requires compelling characters to bring us into the world of the story, and the cast of Children of Men deliver the interesting people that the film needs to centre the viewer. Owen and Caine in particular are effective in creating sympathetic protagonists. The character arc of a former believer finding a cause worth reviving their idealism for could easily be cliche, but the screenplay and Owen's performance lend subtlety and verisimilitude, giving a film that drips so much despair a strong core of hope.

Profoundly frightening, yet ultimately moving and hopeful, Children of Men is easily one of the best science-fiction films of the past several decades.

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Directed by Alfonso Cuarón

Written by Alfonso Cuarón & Timothy J. Sexton and David Arata and Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby. Based on the novel by P.D. James

Starring:
Clive Owen....Theodore Faron
Julianne Moore....Julian Taylor
Chiwetel Ejiofor....Luke
Charlie Hunnam....Patric
Danny Huston....Nigel
Claire-Hope Ashitey....Kee
Peter Mullan....Syd
Pam Ferris....Miriam
Michael Caine....Jasper Palmer