Children of Men (2006)

“Mortal Gods” was written by Orson Scott Card in 1970-something. Briefly: an immortal alien race was enamored with human architecture, because it reflected our desire to be remembered for generations after we died. The Pyramids, cathedrals, fancy office buildings, anything by Frank Lloyd Wright – all of the above exist because someone wanted to build something that would stand the test of time, so that people who would never meet them would recognize their names.
But what do you do when there will be no future generations to enjoy your work?

Made almost 15 years ago, about a future that’s a mere 7 years away, “Children of Men” was about a world where human fertility had inexplicably dropped to 0% across the board. It didn’t matter what race or age any woman was, there simply were no children.

The opening scene of was of news coverage of the world’s youngest person and de-facto celebrity, Baby Diego, an 18 year old man who was stabbed outside a café. As there were no more babies in the world, the media had taken to tracking the youngest humans, giving them a horrendous and unasked for responsibility to be the entire worlds’ pinprick of youthful joy. So when Baby Diego was killed, the entirety of the UK went into mourning.

In this world, you were the end of your genetic line, and because there were no more generations to enjoy anything, the world collapsed.

Why build up a business empire? Why keep the roads clean? Why try to take care of anyone besides yourself for any reason when it was clear that it wouldn’t matter anyway?

And not just that: any school teachers were out of a job. Pediatrics was a dead-end career. Toy manufacturers had a steadily decreasing market hold.
The highschool graduating class of 2027 must have had the most morbid commencement ceremony ever.

The movie took place entirely in the UK. Like what was shown in “V for Vendetta” (2005), the UK took a hard stance on propaganda, constantly streaming government-sponsored ads noting that the world had completely fallen apart, while the UK stood strong and tall. But in between those commercials, loudspeakers constantly blared warnings that harboring fugitives – anyone who wasn’t a UK citizen – was illegal, especially as the UK had blocked off their borders for air and sea. The “fugees,” as they were called, were rounded up, put in literal cages, and sometimes executed on the spot. To add to all of this, there were posters throughout the city for a product called “Quietus,” which was eventually revealed to be a legal, painless, DIY suicide kit you could have on hand for whenever you were ready to end your suffering in such a dark world. It was not used by the main character or anyone you cared about, so I promise I didn’t just spoil anything.

The established world for this movie was almost more interesting than the movie itself.

But I should talk about the actual plot now:

Theo (Clive Owens) was a dead-beat, low-level government employee who liked nothing more than to relax and get high. When spontaneously contacted by his political activist ex-wife Julian (Julianna Moore), he found himself party to the “The Fishers,” an insurgent group who were fighting for the rights of fugees. Lo and behold, the larger part of Julian’s plan was to help Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) escape the island nation completely, as she was both fugee and pregnant; two critical details that Julian realized would get Key killed and the baby taken away by the UK government to be paraded around as the child of a UK native, thanks to the violent throes of xenophobia the country suffered from.

There’s a trope with dystopian fiction that dictates that, regardless of how bad the dystopia is, there’s always some kind of haven that’s a comparative utopia. In “Book of Eli” (2010) it was the Alcatraz library, in Orwell’s 1984 (1949) it was the underground Proletariat rebellion. “Brazil” (1985), “Zombieland 2” (2019), “I Am Legend” (2007), and “Logan” (2017) all had an equivalent too.

So when Julian clarified that Theo needed to help Key get to ‘The Human Project,’ I wasn’t particularly surprised.

I’ll be honest: I don’t particularly like that trope. Those hidden utopias always seem like such moonshots while everyone else is drowning and taking everyone else with them, and it seems like it’d be such a no-brainer for a bully entity (person, gang, government, etc) to simply steam-roll over the utopia and ruin whatever had been saved there.

The rest of the movie centered on Theo and Key’s escape from the British isle, dealing with double-crossing gang members, cutthroats, and the future UK Army wearing blue digital camo.

The ending wasn’t quite as clear as Megan would have liked, and it strayed frustratingly close to the stupidly enigmatic ending of The Giver (1993) that I hate, but it was clear enough that I know what the ultimate conclusion was. In conjunction with the way the story played out and how all the pieces continued to fall into place, I’ll accept it.

The soundtrack for this was… well it wasn’t good. Or, at least, I didn’t like it. It was a weird playlist of classic rock songs that I recognize, but covered by someone else, so they all sounded very strange. Maybe if I’d been an adult in 2006 and saw this in theaters, I might have liked it more. And, ultimately, I realize that as much as I didn’t like the choices, they did seem to fit the scenes in a way that didn’t actually detract thematically or cinematically.

The entire movie was filmed in cold colors. I don’t know if that was due to a filter and post-production editing, or if they simply found ways to shoot everything in places that were dreary and grey, but that pallet selection definitely added to the feeling of hopelessness that pervaded the world of 2027.

This was fantastic.
I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as a 14 year old, but as a 28 year old, I loved the depth and darkness in it. I’m absolutely a sucker for a well-thought-out dystopia with horrifying implications, especially if it’s not the normal apocalypse-type scenario (nuclear war, disease, global warming).
I wish it came out now so I could see it in theaters.
Well… post-quarantine ‘now.’