Children Of Men

Synopsis: In the year 2027 the world is infertile. The youngest person on the planet, an 18-year old boy, has just been stabbed to death because he wouldn’t sign an autograph. Britain has closed itself off from the world. Refugees from other countries are hunted down and kept in shantytowns behind high walls. A possibly totalitarian government insists that it is protecting the nation from those who would take what is left from the people. Theo (Clive Owen) is a man numbed to it all, but he lives. As does everyone else. Then he’s contacted by his ex-lover (Julianne Moore), now a terrorist fighting the government and it might be that the human race is not going to die out after all…

Twenty-one years from now, humanity has lost all hope for its future. With no children being born, no reason to look to the future, the world collapses in on itself. But what happens when hope enters a hopeless world? What do you do with it? Do you grab onto it, cling to it like it’s a life raft? Do you turn it into something you can use? Or do you let it carry you along, taking you places you’ve never experienced?

The hope of the world is simple. Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) is eight months pregnant. The first pregnancy in 18 years. Theo sees it, as almost no one else does, as hope for mankind. Most everyone else sees it as hope for themselves. But this is what makes Theo special. He isn’t invested in causes, so he can see Kee for what she is, a young girl who needs looking after. But there is a resistance/terrorist organisation called The Fishes who want Kee’s child to use as their emblem in the uprising against the government. The government, should they ever find out, would take the child and hold it up as proof that Britain’s walling itself off from the world is working to create a purity in the people that will bring new fertility. But Kee wants to be taken to The Human Project, a near mythical organisation of scientists dedicated to finding a way to bring the human race back from extinction. So Kee and Theo must try to find a way to get to the coast and reach a boat that may or may not be waiting for them. Hope piled upon hope.

Children of Men is a science fiction film that doesn’t really feel like a science fiction film. An action film that never feels like an action film. A musing on the nature of humanity with a driving narrative that makes the film seem epic beyond what the running time suggests. This film is amazing. Its absolute refusal to obey almost every convention of the genres it plays in makes it something quite special. Every moment that could become an action set piece is countered by keeping the reality grounded in handheld camerawork. Long takes in wide angle don’t give you an action scene to passively enjoy, instead you are thrown inside the discomfort of the moment and sense the risk and shock of everything that could take place. You are kept inside Theo’s space at all times as he navigates a dangerous world in order to try and deliver Kee to The Human Project. The performances are all naturalistic, even Michael Caine’s turn as an ageing hipster is oddly believable as he dances around to Radiohead and hardcore trance music. Imagine yourself twenty-one years from now, it makes sense. Nothing feels out of place, nothing feels impossible, and that makes it all the more frightening.

This is one of the finest action films in a long time, and one of the best science fictions in the tradition of the New Wave SF writers of the '60s and early '70s. And above all, it is an excellent meditation on the nature of humanity and hope. Without hope everything dies, and even with it there are no guarantees. But while it sends some insane, with others it sends them soaring.

 

 

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