Set in the United Kingdom of 2027, the film explores a grim world in which two decades of global human infertility have left humanity with less than a century to survive. Societal collapse, terrorism, and environmental destruction accompany the impending extinction. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom—perhaps the last functioning government—persecutes a seemingly endless wave of illegal immigrant refugees seeking sanctuary. In the midst of this chaos, Theo Faron (Clive Owen) must find safe transit for Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), a pregnant African refugee.
The film's themes of hope, redemption, and faith. Described as a companion piece to Cuarón's Y tu mamá también (2001), both films examine contemporary social and political issues through the epic journey of the road film.
"Children of Men" was not a financial success, but attracted positive reviews from critics. The film was recognised for its achievements in screenwriting, cinematography, art direction, and innovative single-shot action sequences, receiving three Academy Award nominations and winning two BAFTA awards.
Themes:
Hope-
Children of Men explores the themes of hope and faith in the face of overwhelming futility and despair. The film's source, the novel The Children of Men by P. D. James, describes what happens when society is unable to reproduce, using male infertility to explain this problem. In the novel, it is made clear that hope depends on future generations. James writes, "It was reasonable to struggle, to suffer, perhaps even to die, for a more just, a more compassionate society, but not in a world with no future where, all too soon, the very words 'justice,' 'compassion,' 'society,' 'struggle,' 'evil,' would be unheard echoes on an empty air."
The film switches the infertility from male to female but never explains its cause: environmental destruction and divine punishment are considered. This unanswered question (and others in the film) have been attributed to Cuarón's dislike for expository film: "There's a kind of cinema I detest, which is a cinema that is about exposition and explanations.... It's become now what I call a medium for lazy readers.... Cinema is a hostage of narrative. And I'm very good at narrative as a hostage of cinema." Cuaron's disdain for back-story and exposition led him to use the concept of female infertility as a "metaphor for the fading sense of hope". The "almost mythical" Human Project is turned into a "metaphor for the possibility of the evolution of the human spirit, the evolution of human understanding." Without dictating how the audience should feel by the end of the film, Cuarón encourages viewers to come to their own conclusions about the sense of hope depicted in the final scenes: "We wanted the end to be a glimpse of a possibility of hope, for the audience to invest their own sense of hope into that ending. So if you're a hopeful person you'll see a lot of hope, and if you're a bleak person you'll see a complete hopelessness at the end."
Contemporary references
Children of Men takes an unconventional approach to the modern action film, using documentary, newsreel style to convey what critic Michael Joshua Rowin describes as "stunning verisimilitude within its mise-en-scène." For Rowin, the film alludes to and resonates with the catastrophic destruction and symbolism of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Rowin, along with film critics Jason Guerrasio and Ethan Alter, observe the film's underlying touchstone of immigration; Alter notes that the film "makes a potent case against the anti-immigrant sentiment" popular in modern societies like the United Kingdom and the United States, with Guerrasio describing the film as "a complex meditation on the politics of today".
Cuarón explains how he uses this imagery to propagate the theme by cross-referencing fictional and futuristic events with real, contemporary, or historical incidents and beliefs:
| " | They exit the Russian apartments, and the next shot you see is this woman wailing, holding the body of her son in her arms. This was a reference to a real photograph of a woman holding the body of her son in the Balkans, crying with the corpse of her son. It's very obvious that when the photographer captured that photograph, he was referencing La Pieta, the Michelangelo sculpture of Mary holding the corpse of Jesus. So: We have a reference to something that really happened, in the Balkans, which is itself a reference to the Michelangelo sculpture. At the same time, we use the sculpture of David early on, which is also by Michelangelo, and we have of course the whole reference to the Nativity. And so everything was referencing and cross-referencing, as much as we could. | " |
In the closing credits, the Sanskrit words, "Shanti Shanti Shanti" (pronounced as śānti), appear as end titles.] Writer and film critic Laura Eldred of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, observes that Children of Men is "full of tidbits that call out to the educated viewer". During a visit to his house by Theo and Kee, Jasper says "Shanti, shanti, shanti." Eldred notes that the "shanti" used in the film is also found at the end of an Upanishad and in the final line of T. S. Eliot's poem, The Waste Land, a work Eldred describes as "devoted to contemplating a world emptied of fertility: a world on its last, teetering legs". However, "shanti" is also a common beginning and ending to all Hindu prayers, and literally means "peace," referencing the invocation of divine intervention and rebirth through an end to violence.
Religion
Described as a "companion piece" to Cuarón's Y tu mamá también (2001), Children of Men is also a road movie. Like Virgil's Aeneid, Dante's Divine Comedy, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the crux of the journey in Children of Men lies in what is uncovered along the path rather than the terminus itself. Theo's heroic journey across the UK mirrors his personal quest for "self-awareness", a journey that takes Theo from "despair to hope".
According to Cuarón, the title of P. D. James' book (The Children of Men) is a Catholic allegory derived from a passage of scripture in the Bible. (Psalm 90(89):3 of the KJV: "Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.") James refers to her story as a "Christian fable" while Cuarón describes it as "almost like a look at Christianity": "I didn't want to shy away from the spiritual archetypes," Cuarón told Filmmaker Magazine. "But I wasn't interested in dealing with dogma."
| " | Ms. James's nativity story is, in Mr. Cuarón's version, set against the image of a prisoner in an orange smock with a black bag on his head, arms stretched out as if on a cross. | " |
| — |
The film has been noted for its use of Christian symbolism; for example, British terrorists named "Fishes" protect the rights of refugees. Opening on Christmas Day in the United States, critics compared the characters of Theo and Kee with Joseph and Mary, calling the film a "modern-day Nativity story": Kee's pregnancy is revealed to Theo in a barn, alluding to the manger of the Nativity scene, and when other characters discover Kee and her baby, they respond with "Jesus Christ" or the sign of the cross.
To highlight these spiritual themes, Cuarón commissioned a 15-minute piece by British composer John Tavener, a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church whose work resonates with the themes of "motherhood, birth, rebirth, and redemption in the eyes of God." Calling his score a "musical and spiritual reaction to Alfonso's film", snippets of Tavener's "Fragments of a Prayer" contain lyrics in Latin, German and Sanskrit sung by a mezzo-soprano. Words like "mata" (mother), "pahi mam" (protect me), "avatara" (saviour), and "alleluia" appear throughout the film.
The Road
Children of Men is considered a road film. Social and political commentary and rebellion are two themes that are characteristic of road films and both can be seen in Children of Men.
The international infertility epidemic and subsequent downfall of every country except the United Kingdom is introduced within the first couple of minutes of the film, thanks to a voice-over news broadcast. Because news reports are generally considered objective explanations of what is going on in the world, they provide an interlude to the commentary the film makes about society and politics in this fictional world.
Brian Ireland argues that crossing cultural boundaries in road films is a "reflection of the wider cultural context in which the movie... is placed". In the first scene of the film, Theo gets coffee in a cafe where all the patrons are glued to the news on the television about the youngest person on earth having been killed. As soon as he leaves, a bomb goes off in the cafe. Shortly after the bomb goes off, Theo drives to visit Jasper, his mentor and good friend. Jasper suggests that it was the government that blew up the coffee shop and then expresses his sentiments for all of the immigrants that are flocking to Britain because of the state of their own countries. Once the audience receives the objective information from the newscasts about the state of the world and culture within the movie, the film immediately responds with commentary about how the government is managing the crisis.
According to David Laderman, author of Driving Visions: Exploring the Road Movie, rebellion is the, "engine driving the genre" There are three strong rebel forces in the film. Theo's friend and mentor, Jasper, is an aging hippie, ex-political cartoonist who now lives off the grid and illegally sells marijuana to government workers. The Fishes are a rebel group planning a violent uprising against the government. Finally, Theo himself, along with Kee, are the ultimate rebels in the film because they go against not only the government, but the Fishes as well.
Plot
The film is set in the year 2027. Due to an unexplained infertility pandemic, no human children have been born in any part of the world for more than eighteen years. The world has descended into chaos with most governments in the world collapsing, leaving the United Kingdom as one of the sole organised societies. Consequently, millions of refugees ("fugees") have flooded into the country seeking asylum. As a result of the influx, the British government has become a militarised police state. The British Army occupies the streets and forcefully detains all 'illegal immigrants' and suspected sympathisers.
When the movie opens, hard-drinking Theo (Owen), an activist turned apathetic bureaucrat, is buying coffee in a crowded coffee shop. There, he learns that the world's youngest human, an eighteen-year-old known as "Baby Diego", has been stabbed to death in Buenos Aires for refusing to sign an autograph. As Theo leaves the café on Fleet Street, a bomb explodes, destroying the coffee shop and killing numerous passers-by. The government attributes the attack to the Fishes, an underground resistance group advocating the rights of "every immigrant in Britain". Shaken, Theo visits his friend, Jasper Palmer (Caine), a former editorial cartoonist and aging hippie. Jasper lives in a secluded hideaway in the countryside and spends his time growing cannabis and caring for his catatonic wife, a former photojournalist tortured by the government.
Upon his return to London, Theo is kidnapped by the Fishes, who are led by his estranged wife Julian Taylor (Moore). Theo is surprised and happy to see her as they broke up shortly after Dylan, their young son, died during the flu pandemic of 2008. Julian offers Theo £5,000 in exchange for his help in obtaining a travel permit for a young African girl named Kee (Ashitey). Initially ambivalent, Theo decides to obtain the permits, as well as escort Kee in exchange for more cash. He visits his cousin Nigel (Huston), a government minister and curator of a repository for rescued art, who arranges for the papers, with the stipulation that Theo must accompany Kee.
The trip begins, and Luke (Ejiofor), a member of The Fishes, drives Theo, Kee, Julian, and Miriam (Ferris), a midwife, toward the first security checkpoint. They are ambushed by a group of renegades before they arrive, and Julian is fatally shot in the neck. The police soon follow but are distracted and then killed by Luke. The group then escapes to a safe house. With Julian dead, Luke is appointed the new leader of the Fishes.
Kee reveals to Theo that she is pregnant with the first child in nearly two decades, telling him that Julian told her that she should only trust Theo. She also tells him that Julian had intended to take Kee to the Human Project, a mysterious group of scientists dedicated to curing infertility. With Julian dead, however, Luke proposes keeping Kee with the Fishes, and she chooses to stay until after the baby is born. Theo suggests that the group go public with the information about Kee's baby, but the Fishes argue that Kee's baby will be taken by the government and used for its benefit.
Just before dawn, Theo awakens to overhear Luke and other high ranking members of the Fishes heatedly discussing the incident that killed Julian. Theo sees the broken motorcycle that was ridden by Julian's killers, and it comes to light that her death was a planned operation, so that the Fishes would be able to use Kee's baby as a political tool. Theo wakes Kee and Miriam and they steal a car and escape to Jasper's house. At Jasper's, Miriam explains that the rendezvous with the Human Project's ship Tomorrow is scheduled at a buoy offshore from the Bexhill refugee camp. Jasper proposes a plan to smuggle them into the camp with the help of his friend and marijuana customer Syd, a guard at Bexhill.
After the Fishes discover Jasper's hideout, Theo, Miriam, and Kee escape with Jasper's help. Realising that his end is near, Jasper euthanises his wife. He refuses to reveal where Theo, Miriam, and Kee are, and is murdered by the Fishes. Theo and the group meet Syd (Mullan) at an abandoned school, and he drives them to Bexhill as faux-prisoners. When Kee begins having contractions while they are loaded onto a refugee bus and taken into the camp, Miriam distracts a suspicious guard from noticing Kee's condition by faking religious mania, and is dragged off the bus into detention. As the bus pulls away, a line of corpses of others who have been removed from the buses is seen, illustrating the sacrifice Miriam has made to save Kee and her baby.
Theo and Kee enter Bexhill, a resort on the southern English coast which has been converted into a squalid detention centre for refugees. Here they meet Syd's contact, Marichka, a Roma woman from Romania. She provides them with a room where Kee gives birth to a girl. Syd reappears the next day and, after discovering the baby, attempts to kidnap Kee and her baby to collect a bounty. With Marichka's help, they manage to fight him off and escape. The Fishes then break into Bexhill, attempting to capture Kee and her baby amidst the commotion of a refugee uprising. The uprising quickly gains momentum and the British Army moves in to quell the rebellion.
The Fishes recapture Kee, but in the chaos Theo tracks Kee and her baby to a besieged apartment building and frees them. Luke shoots at Theo as they make their escape. Luke is then shot and killed. When the soldiers and the armed insurgents hear the baby crying, the fighting stops and the combatants look on in awe. Theo, Kee, and the baby leave the building in safety, walking past the astonished soldiers.
As the fighting resumes, they join Marichka and make their way to a small boat, and Theo rows Kee and her baby out to the buoy that marks the rendezvous point. As they depart from the coast, British fighter planes fly in and destroy Bexhill. Kee sees blood in the boat, and Theo admits that he was shot during their escape. Kee then says she will name her baby Dylan, after Theo's deceased son. As Theo loses consciousness and slumps to the side of the boat, the Tomorrow emerges from the thick fog.
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