`As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very odd, what happens in a world without children's voices.'London, 2027. The world is a very different place to the one we recognise. Humans are somehow sterile and no child has been born for over 18 years. The youngest person on the planet, a celebrity because of that status, is murdered. Refugees are being deported. People have lost hope.
The excellent Clive Owen stars in Children Of Men, based on the book by P.D.James. He plays Theo, a reluctant hero, who is `recruited' by his ex-wife Julian (played by the also excellet Julianne Moore) to escort a woman out of England. This wouldn't be so unusual except the woman, Kee, is pregnant. Also in the film is Michael Caine who plays Theo's friend Jasper, a hippy type who enjoys life away from war-torn London.
You have to suspend disbelief a bit, of course, being a futuristic movie but it is strangely plausible. What would happen if women were unable to have babies. There's a real sense of despair here, you can't help but feel it.
Theo is reluctant to come on board with the mission until he discovers Kee's secret. From there it's them against the world as he tries to protect her and give her safe passage to be rescued by the Human Project, who no-one has seen but everyone seems to know about.
I think everyone will know the main premise of the movie by now and I won't go any further into the plot. What I will say is this is a must-see.
It's not unnecessarily long, as it could well have been, and I don't think anyone will win Academy Awards but it is riveting. It's fascinating to imagine how you would react if faced with a world where there actually is no hope. As Theo says in one seen, `what's the use of all this (excess) if no-one will be around in 100 years?'
I was glued to the chair, I found the film very moving even to the point of having tears flowing down my cheeks and that has never happened before in a movie. At first the film destroys your faith in humanity then, just when you think people can't sink any lower, it poignantly restores that faith in human kind.
Powerful and, as I said, a must-see.
A 9 out of 10 (and I was tempted to go a little higher) and a contender for movie of the year.
2 comments:
wow, what an impressive review!
I'm going to have to see it now...
sounds interesting!
Now even though I havent seen the film i still have a few random thoughts...I have no idea if i am totally alone in this, but i do seem to make random associations with films and Christianity quite frequently, and this review proves to be no exception...
" just when you think people can't sink any lower, it poignantly restores that faith in human kind."
This sentence actually reminded me of Jesus, for two reasons -
He "made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant...he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross." (Phil 2:7-8). In other words, just when we think he couldnt get lower than becoming one of us, he actually dies for us (and funnily enough, does this for the sake of restoring not faith in humanity, but humanity itself really)
Sorry, I realise that at face value this doesnt have a lot to do with the film...but from your review it made me think of these things...i think the fact that the film seems to present a desperate and hopeless world in need of saving points to reality, whether or not the majority of movie goers will pick that up...
and maybe that is why u responded so strongly to it, because whether or not the filmmaker intended it, this film does seem to mirror the hopelessness we have without our Lord and Saviour!
hm just a thought anyway...hope it made some sense!
(sorry it was quite long!)
In a way you are right. Although there is a scene where a `religious' sect is seen protesting claiming that the position the world has found itself in is because of God's punishment.
I'd say see for yourself and then come back to me. But as I said it is very moving, from whatever position you are coming from
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