Children of Men
Rated: R This is a film about many things. It’s about the human condition. It’s about the morality of survival. It’s about the difficulty of hope and the temptation of surrender. Writer/Director Alfonso Cuarón goes to a meaner, darker, and ultimately more hopeful place than any futurist film in recent history. But before I start expounding on the brilliance of this film, let’s make a couple of things clear: One critic (and I’ll need to check who) compared the film to Blade Runner. Both films take place in the future and that’s where the simliarities end. I guarantee that this film has 100% less Rutger Hauer and takes place in a realistic setting rather than the hyper-stylized and hyper-rainy world crafted by Ridley Scott a quarter century ago. Second, do not look for a solution to the film’s premise of why women go sterile and what allows the refugee Kee to conceive when the rest of the world cannot. It sets up the plot, but this isn’t a sci-fi/action/mystery. To look for this solution is to miss the point and beauty of the film entirely. If you want that kind of film, I recommend Paycheck. It’s not very good but it will give you what you want. 
But back to the superior-in-every-way-and-then-some Children of Men, this is a hard film and yet not to the point where its too difficult to watch a second time (or what I like to call “The Requiem for a Dream-Soul Smash”). The film takes place in a frighteningly real not-to-distant London. London, for one reason or another, has become the last semi-sane place on Earth (if you’re wondering why not the U.S. or Canada, again, I’d like to redirect you towards the point you’ve been missing). But this security comes at a price with an utterly brutal crackdown on illegal immigrants flooding into this somewhat-safe haven. Apathetically watching the madness around him, Theo (Clive Owen, giving one of the year’s best performances) comes in contact with Kee through his ex-wife Jillian (Julianne Moore). Moving through a world that’s literally and figuratively on fire, Theo attempts to take Kee to the mythical Human Project, a clandestine organization that may not even exist. Alfonso Cuarón’s direction is a revelation. Many have talked about the impossible long shots, but he doesn’t just use them for the sake of their difficulty and the admiration it will garner from those who notice. He does it only when they will be most effective; when we as an audience desperately want to turn away and escape the madness surrounding Theo and Tia and yet we must struggle alongside them; a move that eventually pushed me to tears as I felt I’d been on real odyssey by the end of the film. Children of Men will shock you and do so through ways you didn’t think you could be shocked. It’s a highly-intellectual film but always roots its concepts in the emotions of the characters and the realism of the world these characters inhabit. It’s the best kind of storytelling and filmmaking at its best. Children of Men is a rich film that earns every frame of every scene. Words by
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