Children Of Men

USA / UK, 2006. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Clare-Hope Ashitey, Pam Ferris, Danny Huston, Peter Mullan.

Children Of Men is set in 2027. Humanity is struggling to survive, most of the world is in chaos and Britain has only retained some semblance of order by becoming a police state. No children have been born for twenty years, after an epidemic which led to humans becoming sterile for reasons which no-one has been able to fathom. Theo (Owen) is a one-time freedom fighter who lost his taste for the fight after his child died. He is contacted by his previous partner (Moore) and asked to use his government connections to assist the terrorists she leads with some travel documents. One thing leads to another and the bulk of the film deals with Theo taking responsibility for Kee (Ashitey), who is pregnant with the world’s first known child for twenty years, and getting her to safety. To do this they have to dodge both government forces and the terrorists, who want to use her for their own ends. I began this film struggling to get an understanding of the various political factions but quickly realised that it wasn’t necessary. I suspect Cuarón was happy to keep it vague – what’s important here is the vision being presented to us of a world in chaos. Britain has sealed its borders, the army has rounded up immigrants and put them in detainee camps where they are bullied or killed, guerrilla fighters hide in ruined buildings and strike where and when they can, hordes of dispossessed and homeless people are on the streets like so much litter. The look and feel of the film is bleak, with an uncertain ending. The final battle scenes show Britain as a war zone – it could be Bosnia or the Middle East. The action sequences look very real and scary (there’s a remarkable scene in a car which lasts about five minutes and is one of the most gripping pieces of action I’ve seen in a movie) and there’s a hero who is as scared as anyone else would be and who doesn’t commit unlikely feats of derring-do. The acting is excellent all round; I would just give a special mention to Peter Mullan as an unhinged security guard. It’s a great piece of film-making.