Clive Owen in Children Of Men (2006 Movie), based on a novel by P. D. James and set during the year 2027, in a quasi-apocalyptic world where the human race has become infertile.
It has been over eighteen years since the last baby was born. Without hope for the future the world has fallen into chaos; war, famine, and disease have crippled former world powers and only Britain soldiers on.
Theo Faron (Clive Owen) is recruited by his ex-wife to secure forged travel documents for a refugee, a young woman named Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey). Theo becomes entangled in a plan to help the young woman escape to the coast and seek the aide of “The Human Project” a secretive team of of researchers working to discover the cause of human infertility.
Children of Men is a sobering preview of America’s future
The British government has decreed that all immigrants are illegal immigrants. Refugees pouring into the United Kingdom are met with barbed wire and brutality at the hands of border patrol guards in full riot gear. Those who do mange to make it into the nation are swiftly deported or sent to what are euphemistically described as refugee camps. In reality the camps are a lawless human wasteland. There is no food or medicine. The camps do not have adequate shelter for the ever growing influx of refugees. There is no refuge here, only more misery and death.
An activist group has taken up the fight for better treatment of immigrants and refugees in response to social injustice and numerous human rights violations. Their efforts quickly evolve into acts of terrorism against the British government. Unfortunately for Theo, these are the very people who claim they want to help Kee find sanctuary at sea … and His ex-wife Julian(Julianne Moore) is one of them.
No answers for hard questions
Children of Men is a movie with a bleak outlook for the human race. If the Human Project is not able to find a solution to the immediate problem of infertility, the entire human race will be extinct in less than a hundred years. But the movies forces us consider this: even if there were a cure for what ails the human body, maybe there is no cure for what ails the human heart. We are the children of men and this is the fate we have inherited.
Children of Men is a cold hard look at the human condition. It reminds me somewhat of “The Road” based on the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy. Both share an equally grim view of human nature but also of our ability to endure and persevere. Both movies are definitely worth a Weekend Rewind.
Originally Published 17 February 2017