Review of Children of Men (2006) by Rayb. — 19 Jan 2008

The characters and the world in which they find themselve struggling to survive (and save the human species) moved me moreso than any other film has in ages, But, ultimately, it was the story of disillusioned, beaten-down, ordinary people trying to make their way in a brutal world that can sometimes be quite beautiful but often is not and how they somehow find it in themselves to rise to the occasion and be heroic in ways they could never have expected of themselves.

I watched the movie and immediately calculated my age in November 2027 to be 64. It's far enough away to be a world we can avoid if we elect the right leaders and globally make the right decisions, but it's also a world that's already here in so many ways - a world where Iraq is never contained and the entire world except possibly the United Kingdom has become Iraq.

It's beautifully filmed and remarkably edited. The acting and writing is the best of 2006, possibly the best of the past ten years. It's despairing and anxiety-producing and supremely upsetting.

And, strangely, it is the most hopeful movie I have seen in a long time. Many questions aren't answered - such as why women are infertile and no child has been born since 2009. But the people who live in this dystopian future, namely us 20 years from now, don't know these answers either.

So would it really have been fair for me sitting confortably at the theater in Battery Park City to know when they didn't? See this movie. Wait a month or two and see it again. Then have a long conversation over pie and coffee with two friends who've also seen it more than once.

It is uncommonly good filmmaking. Oh, and one more thing - in two scenes there are shots panning newspaper and magazine clippings; pay close attention and learn what's happened since 2006 - i.e. "Kazahkstan Annihilated" - the film delivers exposition as good as I've ever seen it.