Review of Children of Men
by Joshua Minton
Let me say first off--go see this movie immediately if not tomorrow or this weekend. This is the best movie to come out in at least six months if not a full year.
I'm going to talk about the plot so don't pussy out on me just because you want to be surprised. You'll still appreciate the film if you know what it's about--I promise.
This is a dystopian hero's journey where the viewer is an over-the-shoulder follower of Clive Owen's character as he makes his way from hollow order through hell into new life.
The movie starts off with London as the only city with any order left in the world. There was a worldwide flu pandemic which apparently ushered in global chaos and left the female of the human species completely sterile, unable to reproduce. The youngest child has become a worldwide celebrity and gets murdered by a fan when he refuses to sign an autograph. The civilized world is in mourning.
Clive Owen plays Theo, a man with a job in the last civilized country on earth. It's all about keeping the immigrants out--the immigrants are referred to as Refugees or "Fugees" in a hat-tip to Lauryn Hill and friends.
Theo walks to work with fugees behind cages stationed with armed guards. The fugees look miserable and beg for food as he walks past. Fugees throw bricks at the train as it moves throughout the city, carrying the civilized to work.
It turns out that Theo's ex-wife, Julian (Julianne Moore) is the ring leader of the Fish, a terrorist movement hell-bent on starting an uprising amongst the immigrant population of London who is being mercilessly suppressed by the British government. Oh, Theo and Julian had a son named Dylan but he died in the flu pandemic. They drifted apart and haven't spoken much for twenty years until she arranges for Theo to be kidnapped.
She begs him for a favor, to get his cousin to forge documents of safe travel for "a girl" to travel to the coast and board a ship to "The Human Project" a mysterious underground society rumored to be working on a cure for the female sterility problem.
Theo can only manage to get joint travel docs where he must travel with the girl. It turns out that the girl is a refugee who is pregnant, a miracle in a world without children and without hope.
Theo gets caught up in a situation of conspiracy and murder where he ends up shepherding this girl and her newborn baby through absolute hell on earth in order to protect the little life and get it to a place where it can mark the start of a new beginning for the human race.
There is a point in the movie where Theo, the girl and the baby end up in the middle of a very tense and bloody battle between the police and the Fish (who are both looking for him to kill him) and the baby starts crying, silencing all the guns, all the soldiers and all the militants. Everyone kneels in awe of the baby child as Theo leads her and her mother through the war zone to safety.
This is the most powerful moment in the movie, an absolute artistic breakthrough that must be meditated upon. Life stops death when normally it is the other way around. This is the marker of proper art, meaning art which holds the individual in aesthetic arrest in the moment. What is it that would possibly make both sides in a war halt their fire and kneel in reverence together? A miracle of a simple child's cry, something we parents take completely for granted--has the power to silence the loudest bomb and the simmer down the most riotous hatred in the heart of man.
The best fiction puts everything at stake all the time and this movie is one of the finest films that I have seen in too long a time. I wholeheartedly recommend that you see it and tell others about it.
PS: Kudos to the filmmaker for the Pink Floyd pig in the skyline when Theo is at his cousin's house--I fell in the love with the movie from that point forward.
LINKS:
TAGS:Children of Men Clive Owen Review Film
I'm going to talk about the plot so don't pussy out on me just because you want to be surprised. You'll still appreciate the film if you know what it's about--I promise.
This is a dystopian hero's journey where the viewer is an over-the-shoulder follower of Clive Owen's character as he makes his way from hollow order through hell into new life.
The movie starts off with London as the only city with any order left in the world. There was a worldwide flu pandemic which apparently ushered in global chaos and left the female of the human species completely sterile, unable to reproduce. The youngest child has become a worldwide celebrity and gets murdered by a fan when he refuses to sign an autograph. The civilized world is in mourning.
Clive Owen plays Theo, a man with a job in the last civilized country on earth. It's all about keeping the immigrants out--the immigrants are referred to as Refugees or "Fugees" in a hat-tip to Lauryn Hill and friends.
Theo walks to work with fugees behind cages stationed with armed guards. The fugees look miserable and beg for food as he walks past. Fugees throw bricks at the train as it moves throughout the city, carrying the civilized to work.
It turns out that Theo's ex-wife, Julian (Julianne Moore) is the ring leader of the Fish, a terrorist movement hell-bent on starting an uprising amongst the immigrant population of London who is being mercilessly suppressed by the British government. Oh, Theo and Julian had a son named Dylan but he died in the flu pandemic. They drifted apart and haven't spoken much for twenty years until she arranges for Theo to be kidnapped.
She begs him for a favor, to get his cousin to forge documents of safe travel for "a girl" to travel to the coast and board a ship to "The Human Project" a mysterious underground society rumored to be working on a cure for the female sterility problem.
Theo can only manage to get joint travel docs where he must travel with the girl. It turns out that the girl is a refugee who is pregnant, a miracle in a world without children and without hope.
Theo gets caught up in a situation of conspiracy and murder where he ends up shepherding this girl and her newborn baby through absolute hell on earth in order to protect the little life and get it to a place where it can mark the start of a new beginning for the human race.
There is a point in the movie where Theo, the girl and the baby end up in the middle of a very tense and bloody battle between the police and the Fish (who are both looking for him to kill him) and the baby starts crying, silencing all the guns, all the soldiers and all the militants. Everyone kneels in awe of the baby child as Theo leads her and her mother through the war zone to safety.
This is the most powerful moment in the movie, an absolute artistic breakthrough that must be meditated upon. Life stops death when normally it is the other way around. This is the marker of proper art, meaning art which holds the individual in aesthetic arrest in the moment. What is it that would possibly make both sides in a war halt their fire and kneel in reverence together? A miracle of a simple child's cry, something we parents take completely for granted--has the power to silence the loudest bomb and the simmer down the most riotous hatred in the heart of man.
The best fiction puts everything at stake all the time and this movie is one of the finest films that I have seen in too long a time. I wholeheartedly recommend that you see it and tell others about it.
PS: Kudos to the filmmaker for the Pink Floyd pig in the skyline when Theo is at his cousin's house--I fell in the love with the movie from that point forward.
LINKS:
- Children of Men Official Movie Site
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TAGS:Children of Men Clive Owen Review Film
Other Posts in the Category: Film, Television and Book Reviews
This blog was originally posted on January 15, 2007
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