*Children of Men

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron

Written by P.D. James (novel), Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Argata, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby

That many cooks in the screenwriting kitchen never produce any movies worth mentioning, do they? Kudos to Alfonso Cuaron for keeping this movie to his taut, singular vision. I kept flashing back to his beautiful and elegiac Y Tu Mama Tambien, which also had an epic vision of the world and society, separate from the narrative of the travellers, played out through moving car windows on the passed roadside. Children of Men had that feel in addition to its admittedly epic main storyline.

For reasons unknown and vague (possibly due to an influenza plague that wiped out a huge chunk of the human population, resulting in general global chaos), women have stopped giving birth, have in fact lost the ability to become pregnant. It’s been over 18 years since a recorded live birth, and that “child” has just been murdered. Theo (Clive Owen) lives his life as quietly as can be managed in these harsh times: work, home, helplessly watching the news, trying to ignore the literally truckloads of illegal immigrants all around him being systematically rounded up and shipped off to refugee camps, and spending time with his few remaining friends, in Theo’s case, the neo-hippy Jasper (Michael Caine, who is brilliant) and his near-catatonic wife.

Make no mistake – this is a fascist state. But it is also apparently the only still-functioning government and society on the planet. So does that mean....? Cuaron is brave enough to present us with a world of hard questions, and is audacious enough to answer very few, if any, of them, other than the power of the human will to simply carry on.

As Theo gets involved in a plot concerning his long-estranged wife Julian (Julianne Moore, who we don’t see nearly enough of nowadays, much less in non-50s-housewifey roles), the last pregnant human Kee (newcomer Claire-Hope Ashitey, who is brilliant), and the enigmatic “Human Project”, he is also dragged into the world of terrorists, military dictatorships, refugees, refugee camps, dangerous double-crosses, and all things, of course, not being as they appear. This is the movie V for Vendetta should have been, wanted to be, and maybe almost was.

The term “documentary style” has become a cliché when talking about modern cinema and television, but Cuaron truly and masterfully uses it here with his long takes with a handheld camera that takes the viewer directly into the heart of brutal, violent warfare. At one point a few drops of blood spatter onto the lens, and remainder of that single, long take is shot with the blood still spattered on the lens. You watch this and think about how a Michael Bay or a Ridley Scott would have captured the scene, with quick edits, slow-motion explosions, a soaring Hans Zimmer score telegraphing every single emotion that We Should Be Feeling Right At This Moment.

Naming the boat “Tomorrow” is a bit on-the-nose, but forgiveable, considering.

Intense, brutal, real, frightening both in plot and implication, and heart-stoppingly gorgeous, even as (or maybe because) it is all these things, all at once. Children of Men is the best movie of 2006.