Children of Men

I had high hopes for this film. Some of the early reviews were great. Later, there were some less than glowing comments. All that, combined with the delay in getting the film to my area, took the sheen off Children of Men. Until I saw it.

I'll cut to the chase and simply say it's my second favorite film of 2006 (#1 being United 93, no ifs, ands, or buts). It has problems, especially in terms of its politics, but it has a central story that just sucks me in.

Let me dispense with the bad right away:

Alfonso Cuarón throws images around in this film in such careless fashion that it becomes mindless and therefore meaningless. I didn't mind the posters slamming Bush and "Bliar", even though it seemed a strange thing to see in a film that ostensibly takes place 20 years in the future. As jabs at current administrations, they're weak. As elements of the film, they're stupid, and they'll seem even more so in the years to come.

There are images that are probably meant to remind us of other current events. Again, they are out of place here. Indeed, sometimes the result comes across as subversive in a pro-conservative way. They looked like visualizations of the arguments Mark Steyn has been making about Islamic immigration and population growth throughout Europe. Indeed, Britain "stands alone"; the uprisings throughout the world have destroyed the rest of the world. Now, the final bastion of civilization is under assault. Is that a liberal or a conservative nightmare?

It was frustrating to see yet another book adaptation that has nothing to do with the book. I recognize that the mediums (book and film) are completely different, have different requirements, can and must do different things. I get that. What I'll never understand is why you would purchase the film rights to a novel and then write a film that has nothing to do with the themes and ideas presented within the novel.

Here is the plot in a nutshell: In the near future, and for reasons unknown, the human race becomes infertile. Some 19 years into this disaster, as it becomes clear that humanity is only a few generations away from extinction, despair becomes the dominant mood. In the midst of this, and also for unknown reasons (aside from the obvious involvement of a man), a woman has become pregnant.

Both novel and movie share those elements. Aside from that and a few character names, they are utterly different stories. Cuaron could have easily done everything from scratch; he just needed another apocalyptic event. He probably could have used infertility. After all, the idea, in slightly different form, has been used before. For example, there's Frank Herbert's The White Plague, and while not infertility per se, humanity is about to become extinct because it can't breed.

Some things in the film are so obvious that they're clumsy. For instance, naming the pregnant girl Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey). Get it? Get it? Nudge nudge. She's the key to everything. Nudge wink. So she's Kee! I almost groaned out loud.

But let's get to the good....

Children of Men is a film of remarkable imagery and power. I know that the bad stuff I've already mentioned gets in the way for some people, but the story -- for me -- boiled down to the simple tale of Theo (Clive Owen). Theo, you see, is a true hero, and there's not enough of those in films these days.

Despite allusions to an "activist" past, Theo doesn't care about the politics of the fascist government, or of the rebel gang, The Vicious. Both are portrayed as morally bankrupt, violent, and murderous. Between them, there are no good guys...except for Theo. And Theo is a reluctant hero with no personal stake in the outcome. He presses on anyway because that's what his very-ex-wife (20 years divorced) wanted and because he needs to rescue the girl and her baby. You could say that he's acting out of love, not of humanity but of the woman he was married to, but it is also clear he realizes what this birth means to the world.

I'm a hopeless romantic. I eat this stuff up.

I'm sure some want to hold Children of Men up as a pro-immigrant film. The Vicious are fighting for immigrant rights. If the film had stopped at that, I would think much worse of it. But the very fact that the immigration issue is not debated becomes interesting, because The Vicious are not good people. They are self-righteous ideologues who aren't above assassination to promote their ends.

One of them essentially declares a vendetta against Theo. Why? Because Theo survives an assassination attempt by fatally injuring the guy's young cousin. Theo was silly enough to protect his own life. The thug's response is precisely the sort you'd hear from a thug. It's tribal instinct and never mind all the fancy talk of "uprising" and their righteous cause. Theo becomes an obstacle to the cause and therefore must die, and even when he -- and others -- are no longer an obstacle, revenge -- and nothing fancier than that -- mandates his death.

Luke (Chiwetel Ejiofor, always good), the leader of The Vicious, wants Kee's baby as a symbol for The People to Rally Behind and Overthrow the Evil Government. (You can almost hear him talking in capital letters.) He couldn't give a rat's ass less about what she represents, that mankind may have found a reprieve from extinction. She's a means to a political end and nothing more. She's only that because she is an illegal immigrant. If a legal citizen had become pregnant, Luke couldn't have cared less. He doesn't see this as humanity's salvation. He only sees his narrow, irrelevant political struggle. He is, in other words, a moonbat and is insane.

When Theo suggests announcing to the world that Kee is pregnant, allowing some ray of hope into a hopeless, forlorn world, Luke and his henchmen recoil in horror. They mouth objections that sound like nothing so much as spoiled children who are utterly clueless. Cuarón, to his credit, never shows that their objections have the slightest basis in reality. Rather, their own actions show just how venal, narrow-minded, and out-of-touch-with-reality these self-righteous people are.

What reality are they out of touch with? The imminent extinction of the human race! How do immigration issues ("Equal rights for all immigrants!") stack up against that? To any rational, sane mind, they don't.

Luke's precious uprising ends up looking like Hamas protests in Gaza or the West Bank, or any other march by Islamist fanatics around the world, complete with masks, kaffiyehs, banners written in some Mid-East script, and shouts of, "Allah Akbar!" It would be easy to say that this illustrates what happens if we oppress Muslims, but in fact this is what happens when Muslim fanatics perceive that they're being oppressed (see cartoon riots and reactions to allegations of Koran flushing for examples). It is, as said, a conservative nightmare given form, and rather than resulting in a slap against Bush, Blair, et al, it ends up making one go, "Well, maybe we should nuke 'em."

(Quick aside: Reminds me of a liberal activist friend who, after seeing The Deer Hunter, recoiled in horror and called it the most pro-war film he'd ever seen. When I saw it I found I agreed with him completely.)

The cast is excellent, but even better is the casting. Cuarón has an eye for faces and bodies and isn't afraid of using folks who are utterly ordinary looking. Julianne Moore, as Theo's ex-wife, aside, there's not a beauty queen or cheesecake in the bunch.

Well, maybe Clive Owen, but then his acting here should at least get him an Oscar nomination, he's that good.

The film work, the craft demonstrated, is nothing short of amazing. Cuarón rules. There is one sequence where a group in a car are assaulted by a mob. I can glimpse the edges of how it had to be done, but it is so perfect that I'm left amazed. There is also a running firefight that sets the bar for such things so high that I wonder if it'll ever be matched, let alone exceeded. It shows the amazing power of extended takes as opposed to the current vogue of MTV rapid-fire cuts and edits. The film deserves Oscars for this if nothing else.

(Odds are, though, the film will be shunned, because the Hollywood crowd will notice that the film has that subtle air of being anti-liberal. There's a surface gloss that it hews to the anti-Bush line, but look a little closer and you see the little slams I've already described.)

At film's end, all the annoying bits faded away. I was left with that central story, Theo becoming obsessed with rescuing Kee and her child, regardless of the personal cost. As I said, he's a hero, a pure hero.

And for me, the strength of his journey overwhelms any of the film's faults.