Children Of Men Movie Review

Children of Men, 2006

Starring: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Claire-Hope Ashitey

Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón

Rated: R for strong violence, language, some drug use and brief nudity

109 min

Sometimes you just luck out…. You might not check the reviews of a movie you have never even heard of. You might just go, on the spur of the moment. You might not have a frickin’ clue what the flick is about, but something in your gut says “Go to this one”… and then, it’s rare, but sometimes, just sometimes… you end up watching a thunderously excellent film. I guess this was a book… don’t ask me how I haven’t read it… there are like three, or maybe even seven more books that I have yet to read.

That was my lucky experience with Children of Men. Now, of course, I have looked at the other, less-biased reviews, and it’s pretty much agreed on. This was a dang good movie. (Agreed upon with the exception of all the people who are to busy trying to sound extreeeemly cool by not agreeing with everyone else…one can always count on these folks to deny the excellence of any movie that others seem to like. To them I say SNORE… with emphasis on the “snore” part.)

Note that I did not claim this was a “happy” movie, or even one that has a “happy ending”…and I usually like those. A lot. In this case, the ending wasn’t good or bad, just way too soon. I could have watched an hour more.

The movie takes place in the not-too-distant future, in England. The world has been torn apart by wars. Illegal immigrants, known as “Fugees” are hunted down and treated with less kindness than stray dogs. The gaps between rich and poor have widened to impossible gulfs. And there are no children.

I might have missed it, but I don’t believe it is ever explained exactly why there are no more children. It just happened, twenty some odd years before, that woman stopped getting pregnant. Those that were already pregnant miscarried. Now, a generation later, the youngest of the population are revered as much as any superstar and still referred to as “babies”. In the beginning of the movie, the world is grief stricken when the youngest human alive, Baby Damian I think was his name, is murdered. The world is a very bleak place.

Our hero Theo (Clive Owens and isn't he brilliant) is one more rat shuffling along the grimy hallways of the present, without hope of ever finding cheese around any corner. When his help is solicited by his ex-wife (Moore), the leader of a band of political rebels, she tells him he is the only person she can trust. Although he isn’t too excited about it, in fact the viewer gets the feeling that he isn’t excited about much of anything nowadays, he gets drawn into her plot. Initially drawn by his empty pockets, he soon become entangled by his guts.

Turns out a girl, a young, tough-talking “fugee” girl named Kee, is miraculously pregnant. Now Theo, as the only person young Kee will trust, must decide who he can trust in turn. Gripping, frightening, and even at times humorous (Theo asks who the father of the baby is and Kee says: “There's no father. I'm a virgin …..Nah! Be great, though, wouldn't it?” LOL), it didn’t let me go for a second.

Me the viewer was drug right smack dab into the world on screen. I was wincing, I was ducking, I was nodding and gulping along with the characters. I was, I admit, mesmerized, pretty much from start to finish. I didn't even consider how much of my life I was spending watching the movie, let alone considering it wasted time.... and you know how rare that is.

It’s up to you to decide if this movie has a good or bad ending. I’m not going to write spoilers, for once, because I am so interested in hearing what people think of this fresh and brand new when they see it, walking in blind, as I did.

Never enjoyed a blind date so much.

I give it 5 &s

& it was harsh

& it was jarring

& the acting was grand

& I didn’t have to see Julianna Moore “almost cry” with her pink rabbit eyes watering on the screen for interminable minutes

& I love dark movies with a thread of hope and that is exactly what this was