Children of Men (2006)

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which women have become somehow infertile, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea.

Director:

Alfonso Cuarón

Writers:

Alfonso Cuarón (screenplay), Timothy J. Sexton (screenplay),

Stars:

Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 28 wins & 29 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Clive Owen	...	Theo Faron
Juan Gabriel Yacuzzi	...	Baby Diego (as Juan Yacuzzi)
Michael Caine	...	Jasper
Mishal Husain	...	Newsreader
Rob Curling	...	Newsreader
Chiwetel Ejiofor	...	Luke
Jon Chevalier	...	Café Customer
Julianne Moore	...	Julian
Rita Davies	...	Café Customer
Charlie Hunnam	...	Patric
Kim Fenton	...	Café Customer
Danny Huston	...	Nigel
Chris Gilbert	...	Café Customer
Phoebe Hawthorne	...	Café Customer
Rebecca Howard	...	Café Customer

Storyline

The world's youngest citizen has just died at 18, and humankind is facing the likelihood of its own extinction. Set in and around a dystopian London fractious with violence and warring nationalistic sects, Children of Men follows the unexpected discovery of a lone pregnant woman and the desperate journey to deliver her to safety and restore faith for a future beyond those presently on Earth.

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Plot Keywords:

future | violence | birth | chaos | survival | 

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Taglines:

In 20 years, women are infertile. No children. No future. No hope. But all that can change in a heartbeat.

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence, language, some drug use and brief nudity

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [United States] UIP [Germany]

Country:

USA UK

Language:

English German Italian Romanian Spanish Arabic Georgian

Release Date:

5 January 2007 (USA)

Also Known As:

Niños del hombre

Filming Locations:

Admiralty Arch, The Mall, St. James's, London, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

$76,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$179,268 (USA) (22 December 2006)

Gross:

$35,286,428 (USA) (9 March 2007)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures, Strike Entertainment, Hit & Run Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

109 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The drug "Quietus" being used for a peaceful suicide is a reference to Shakespeare's Hamlet and it was mentioned during the "To be or not to be" monologue. The word is used to indicate a death that is welcome. Hamlet ponders about who would put up with life's troubles when he could take life into his own hands and make his "quietus" with a "bare bodkin", or unsheathed dagger.

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Goofs

In the climactic 6-minute battle shot, just before Theo enters the hallway where he finds Kee, the camera is briefly visible in the reflection of a window.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Newsreader: Day 1,000 of the Siege of Seattle.
Newsreader: The Muslim community demands an end to the Army's occupation of mosques.
Newsreader: The Homeland Security bill is ratified. After eight years, British borders will remain closed. The deportation of illegal immigrants will continue. Good morning. Our lead story.

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Crazy Credits

At the very end, one can read "Shantih, Shantih, Shantih" with children shouting and laughing on the soundtrack, which can be heard repeatedly throughout the end credits. This is the last line of T.S. Eliot's 1922 poem "The Wasteland." "Shantih" means "peace" in Hindi.

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Connections

Referenced in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: The Informers/The Soloist/Tyson (2009)

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Soundtracks

"Opa Opa"
Written by Giorgos Alkaios
Performed by Antique
Published by Universal Music Publishing Ltd
(p) & (c) 1999 Bonnier Music - A Division of Bonnier Amigo Music Group AB
Licensed from Bonnier Amigo Music Group AB

User Reviews

A thinking person's thriller

Alfonso Cuaron has given us a very clever rendering of a very English dystopian novel. P D James, the "Baroness of Bad" is famous for her well-written and absorbing police procedural novels ("Inspector Dalgliesh") but in the early 90s she produced a vision of a world only 20 years into the future in which for unspecified reasons all the women on earth have become infertile and no babies have been born for the last 18 years.

The rest of the world has lapsed into chaos but the British, stoically, have put the remainder of their civil liberties into the fire and have settled down under an oppressive dictatorship to ward off foreign boarders and await inevitable extinction, though there are some violent dissidents called the fish.

Theo (Clive Owen), a journalist with connections to the top, is "persuaded" by his ex-wife and fish member Julian (Julianne Moore) to obtain some exit papers for Kee (Claire Hope Ashity) a young black woman, who, it turns out, is pregnant. Theo is swept up in Kee's escape across a grim decaying landscape. Not only are there the security forces to contend with, but some equally ruthless insurgents. Cuaron builds the tension exquisitely, interspersing the adrenaline fueled bits with quieter bits.

Kee' projected saviors are a mysterious group called the Human Project who conveniently sail their well-maintained Greenpeace style ex-North Sea fishing trawler past offshore light buoys in the hope of rescuing the human race. But the improbability of this doesn't matter much because by the end of the movie Cuaron has effectively demonstrated what the world would be like if humankind suddenly stopped reproducing. Having children is our way of cheating death, without them there is nothing but death, and in this future there are none about but the living dead.

The casting is pretty well perfect. Clive Owen as Theo puts his haunted good looks to good use as he turns from cynical reporter to a hunted enemy of the state. The motley characters he meets along the way – his ex-wife, the fish rebels, the refugees who help him, the "fascist pig" border guard and above all Michael Caine's aging hippie are all wonderfully realized.

It has been suggested that Cuaron has really made a film about today, not 20 years into the future. The rampaging security forces we see might as well be in Bosnia or Iraq, or even Northern Ireland. In an age of terrorism, order without law very quickly becomes tyranny, which has never been the answer to terrorism. What he and PD James do demonstrate is just how fragile our civil society is.

As a film this is a very fine piece of work. The sets exude grimy Britain, the battles are hair-raising, the quieter moments intense. Cuaron would do a great James Bond movie. He has turned a rather rarefied novel into an exiting and engrossing thriller without obscuring the original message. He is a very versatile and enterprising film-maker and I'm sure he's going to do lots more good stuff.