Children of Men

by Chris

Contains spoilers

I first discovered the work of British writer PD James after reading about her book, The Children of Men, during my second year of high school. Many American readers are probably unfamiliar with this particular author, so I’ll quickly explain. Simply, James is renowned for her crime fiction, with a global audience for her Inspector Dalgleish novels. Her publication of The Children of Men in 1993 came as a shock to her adoring fans, who were unexpectedly hit with a heavy dose of science fiction. She was inspired by news stories reporting the decline of fertility in the West, and described women losing the ability to become pregnant. The book wasn’t well received by literary critics, who talked of the characters being dull and the dialogue stilted. It was also ignored by the science fiction community, who, lets be honest, never enjoy a "serious" writer stepping on their turf. I found the book to be flawed in many ways – but its concept was captivating and it seemed like great material for a filmmaker.

Which brings me to the film adaptation. Director Alfonso Cuarón and writing partner Timothy J Sexton take many shortcuts in adapting PD James' story – simplifying the plot to fit a chase film. It only bears a minor resemblance to the original novel. It’s clear from the first frame that Cuarón has stripped the book down to its barest components, infused it with tabloid thematic issues, and painted it with the dark colours of a dystopian war film. Unfortunately, the big contemporary themes of the book, such as immigration, terrorism, infertility and social decline, are only touched on and little explored.

Children of Men continues a long tradition in cinema that owes its origins to the influence of Fritz Lang's 1926 masterpiece Metropolis, and two novels - George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Here, the English respond to their dire situation with a howl of self-pitying rage, which is represented in a fascist state of riot shields, caged refugees and radical groups. The film begins in London during the year of 2027. For 18 years, humanity has been infertile, which looks to have condemned it to certain extinction. With most of the world in chaos, Britain has resorted to caging and imprisoning foreign refugees (called “fugees”), while bombings and terrorist gangs are commonplace. In the opening scenes we watch as TV channels broadcast the news of Diego Ricardo, the world’s youngest person, who has been killed after refusing to sign an autograph.

Theo (Clive Owen), a lowly office worker, largely ignores everyone around him – only listening to the ramblings of his friend Jasper (Michael Caine). Theo is suddenly kidnapped by The Fish, a resistance group fighting for the rights of immigrants. The group is led by Julian (Julianne Moore), who was Theo’s partner at a time when they were both activists and romantically involved. Julian persuades Theo to obtain transit papers for Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), a Fijian girl, to leave Britain. The exact reasons are murky, but it's soon revealed that Kee is no ordinary girl and could well be the answer to stopping humanity’s destruction. Julian quickly learns that certain members within her group plan to exploit Kee for their own political ends. As a result, Theo is personally tasked with protecting Kee and reaching the ‘Human Project’ – a medical institution that may or may not exist.

In the first scene, Theo walks out onto a London street and the audience starts to take in futuristic details such as holographic adverts and motorised rickshaws. Then a café explodes and we are shocked back to today’s reality. There are many such moments, like a sardonic reference to the hysteria over the death of Princess Diana (the real-world references take over completely later in the film). The various London locations (St James’ Park, Trafalgar Square, Fleet Street) firmly ground the film in reality. For the most part, however, Children of Men is comically downbeat. Theo is grim-faced all the way, experiencing a number of bereavements once he’s dragged into saving Kee by his ex-partner. Theo’s spiritual tortures are pretty conventional and straightforward – the kind of thing you would easily expect in a routine Hollywood film. As I mentioned earlier, the intriguing concept (“What would happen if mankind became infertile?”) is never properly explored. It’s annoying that it makes no substantial attempt to imagine what the world would be like without children. The film never stretches the potential in terms of a political or social commentary.

Children of Men is built entirely on its premise, but doesn't have enough weight behind it – instead using the idea as the basis for a simple chase thriller. As a consequence, the screenplay doesn’t provide much background, even for vital issues. The reason for mass infertility is never explained (you won’t find the answer in the novel either), the Human Project lacks in detail, and world chaos is only vaguely explained through news networks. For the film to truly resonate, it needs to comment directly on those contemporary issues, and it needs to show what created the chaos in the first place. Also, once its revealed that Kee is pregnant, the religious symbolism becomes blatantly obvious. A good example is a scene that depicts Kee standing semi-nude among cattle in a barn - while Theo says in disbelief, “Jesus Christ”. It’s not exactly a subtle message.

Clive Owen and Julianne Moore - both talented and reliable mainstream actors – give solid performances. Owen gives a typically detached performance as Theo, playing a man who accepts humanity’s fate and as a result shows little emotion. They don’t have many scenes together, and I didn’t see enough chemistry in the few they did. It's Claire-Hope Ashitey who functions as the female lead, particularly once Theo and Kee hit the road and their relationship gets more intimate. Michael Caine is warmly eccentric as Theo’s dope-dealing bohemian friend Jasper, presumably included to lighten things up. Other cameos add very little to the plot, including that of Peter Mullan as a security guard, and Danny Huston as a government minister.

Sections of the film showcase the stunning cinematography developed by Cuarón and his director of photography Emmanuel Lubezski. There is an early set-piece in which a car the characters are travelling in is attacked by a violent mob in the Kent countryside. Petrol bombs are thrown, windows are shot out, and a chasing dirtbike somersaults off the road – all in one impossibly long take. The main pyrotechnics are reserved for the climatic sequence in a refugee camp - a localized warzone where the resistance groups and military forces clash. These final 20 minutes will not only shake you, but they'll have you questioning just how much more realistic cinematic combat can possibly get. Handheld cameras take you through ruined buildings and bullet-riddled vehicles, as the sound of machine guns fill the air (all shot in yet another single take).

On a visual level, it reminded me of the handheld work in Saving Private Ryan, but the violence also echoes
contemporary situations - Bosnia, Palestine, and even Iraq. The real-world references are littered everywhere at this late stage in the film (The War on Terror, Guantanamo Bay, 9/11), with Cuarón preferring to keep them in the background. He fails once, conspicuously, with an extra standing in a pose lifted straight from the photos of Abu Ghraib. It becomes a relief when the camera follows Theo running like the wind across the battlefield, because at that point you’re reminded that he’s the hapless hero in this fictionalised warzone. A particularly impressive scene happens close the end of the film, where Theo and Kee emerge from the ruins - only to face soldiers who immediately stop shooting at the sight of her baby. The irony pretty much hits you, since we all know what really happens to children in warzones. Yet the shamelessly emotive scene is completely believable in terms of the film’s brink-of-extinction scenario, and it pulls you into what has suddenly become a crazily hopeful dream.

I admire the unrestrained energy of Children of Men and what Alfonso Cuarón has accomplished technically. It’s a handsome and exceptionally well-made film that's certainly worth seeing for its visual style. However, it has to sacrifice its intriguing concept for that visual style – making it seem like a missed opportunity. If Cuarón set out to make a thriller and action spectacle, he succeeded brilliantly. If he set out to make a serious and thought provoking work of science-fiction, then he hasn’t quite pulled it off.