Children of Men
Composite Score: 86.47
Starring: Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Caine, Clare-Hope Ashitey, Pam Ferris, Charlie Hunnam, Peter Mullan, Danny Huston, Paul Sharma, and Jacek Koman
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Writers: Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby
Genres: Action, Drama, Sci-fi, Thriller
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence, language, some drug use, and brief nudity
Box Office: $70.60 million worldwide
My take on Watching This Film:
Children of Men is Alfonso Cuarón’s film adaptation of P. D. James’s novel The Children of Men about a dystopic near future where seemingly universal human infertility has brought society to the brink of collapse. The film focuses on British civil servant Theo Faron (Clive Owen) who becomes caught up in a plot by a militant immigrant-rights group (the Fishes) to rescue a special refugee, Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), and help her escape from the chaos of the collapsing society. The film also features Julianne Moore as Theo’s ex-wife and leader of the Fishes, Julian Taylor, Pam Ferris as the nurse traveling with Kee to help her to safety, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Julian’s assistant Luke, and Michael Caine as Theo’s friend and pot grower Jasper Palmer. It explores themes of hope and religion couched in this dystopic look at a frighteningly close to life near future, particularly its exploration of societal treatment of immigrants and refugees. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Adapted Screenplay and remains one of the acclaimed director’s most widely beloved films.
Children of Men’s greatness lies in Cuarón’s filmmaking excellence. With his crew and fellow writers, he creates this immersive, engrossing, and unforgettable alternate future world that draws the audience fully in. Every shot lasts longer than the typical sci-fi action filmmaking would dictate, pulling you along with Theo and his fellow travelers in this world of grime, despair, and grasping at straws. Clive Owen does a phenomenal job as the audience’s surrogate in this not-quite-familiar world, blending his hope and skepticism with the audience’s own knowledge, matching and dictating their emotions with his own. Eventually, you’re so drawn into the world that’s been crafted on screen that you begin to realize how invested you’ve become in this story, hoping, running, gripping your knees as you watch the race for survival unfold. It’s a bleak potential reality, but it invites you to take a look at your own life and politics and ask how you are treating your fellow man and how you are valuing the lives of those around you and how you are advocating for those without a voice to advocate for themselves. The fact that it’s able to accomplish all of this while also containing some phenomenal action sequences and great sci-fi production design really speaks to Cuarón’s skills as a filmmaker and the film’s overall place in cinematic history.
With Children of Men, we are given a truly immersive sci-fi action experience, expertly crafted by Alfonso Cuarón to draw the audience in and then give them a heaping helping of thematic elements alongside the typical fare we’ve come to expect from such dystopic films, earning it a guaranteed place among the Greatest Films of All Time. Those who prefer to simply disconnect while watching science fiction/action films might find this one a bit too heady, but anyone looking for the elevated form of those genres has certainly come to the right place. Currently, this film can be streamed with a Starz subscription or rented on most streaming platforms if you’d like to give it a go.
