Children of Mediocrity
Children of Men is advertised (perhaps unsuccessfully -- one coworker told me, "I want to see the movie where men can have babies!") on a high-concept idea -- without warning or explanation, children can no longer be born. Jumping forward 18 years, this pre-apocalyptic future provides the setting for a dark and depressing world that no one really cares about. This is, sadly, where the film really succeeds in its' attempts.
First and foremost, this is not a film built on its' alleged premise. This is a thinly veiled political commentary on American foreign policy. The issue of childbirth is, at best, a conceit used to demonstrate the lack of hope that permeates the future world and, at worst, far too often, a maguffin. It seems that, in a future where the population has been steadily declining for two decades, there's still one major problem: overpopulation.
The immigrant issue is explained in a brief, 20 second commercial played on a bus; The world is in such shambles that every place but England has managed to destroy itself. Fair enough, but one has to wonder why, to tell such a story, Alfonso Cuaron felt it necessary to A) place it in a future where the situation should logically be far less severe than if the same world-explodes-but-not-England happened today and B) set the film in England at all, a country where, geographically, immigration would seem easier to deter than almost any other country on Earth.
I do feel rather bad about making comparisons without having read P.D. James' original novel (and I promise to fix that in the near future) but a cursory examination of how the two differ (admittedly supplied by Wikipedia research) makes me wonder why Cuaron bothered to adapt the novel in the first place and didn't just write an original story.
The issue of the immigrants, I was not surprised to learn, is very different in the novel. In fact, it's the polar opposite of the film. Since the population can't grow and because people are needed to run a country, England is desperate to attract new citizens. That's the kind of logic that the film is sorely lacking not only in terms of verisimilitude but in terms of sheer creativity. The dystopia of the film, rather than come across as organic, feels like a jumbled mash of everything Cuaron dislikes about modern politics. That's not to say there aren't topics that are easy to side with him on, it's just that to present those topics in the way he does is simply bad storytelling.
Bad storytelling, I must make clear at this point, is why I truly feel that Children of Men is a bad film. It's necessary for one to separate themes that they feel are misguided from poor craftsmanship. So, before I move into discussing some of those themes, I think it's necessary to discuss the manner in which those themes are presented.
As I've said, I feel the basic setup of the world is highly flawed. To an equal extent, though, so are the characters. Clive Owen plays a man who has some kind of job. That's pretty much all the character we have when the film starts. He's depressed, sure. We know this because he drinks. But in a future world where the government hands out suicide drugs to help with depression, the fact that he drinks doesn't really come off as consequential in the least.
We're told he had a baby and later learn that the baby died of lung cancer. This is a mistake. If we're to get any character development we need something that he can make up for. The my-baby-died-randomly doesn't go with this-baby-was-randomly born. In the novel, I've found, the character's child doesn't die from lung cancer; He accidentally runs over him backing out of his driveway. How much more powerful is that? The character is actually at fault for the death of his child. The end of all children all over the world becomes a character driven metaphor for that loss and his role as protector of the pregnant mother becomes an issue of his own redemption. I can't begin to fathom why Cuaron would change something like that outside of a "test audiences don't like characters that kill children" mentality.
Then we have Michael Caine. He plays the exposition. It's hard to imagine a filmmaker having much less respect for their audience than Cuaron must when we hear some of the things that come out of Caine. He tells Owen all about how the world operates as though he were an idiot, oblivious to everything around him. "That's a bus of immigrants," he'll say, "In the future, immigrants are taken to prison camps." "That's a suicide device the government mails people," he'll chime in. It's a real shame that a film that really does have a distinct look to it plays as though it was written for radio.
Almost worse than the dialogue, however, is the editing. The film's strength really lies in its' cinematography but it loses a lot simply in the way that it's cut together. The exposition, you see, doesn't end with Caine. There's actually a shot where the camera gets up, walks over to a shelf and looks at expository mementos as a means of introducing Caine. A shot like this is tantamount to walking into someone's house, greeting them and then saying, "I'll be right back", walking into the next room to read what's on their wall and then returning to the conversation. What's more, we really don't learn anything relevant about Caine that we couldn't have figured out just through character interaction. (We learn he used to be a political cartoonist; This is the film's sly way of saying don't worry, he's a liberal while not giving us anything about his character that actually matters.)
A lot of the action progresses in the same manner and the only attempt at reconciliation is that the characters are viewed as being even dumber than the audience. Clive Owen steals a car that we and he have clearly been told does not start, passing over and sabotaging two other cars to get to it. Guess what? When the chase begins, the car doesn't start.
There's all manner of lesser character that seem to be written in just so they can then be killed in the next scene. By the end, it's actually comical when an old gypsy woman sobs, "Go on without me!" as our heroes board a raft. There's absolutely no reason that she shouldn't board the raft (or that we should care when she doesn't) and, because we, moments later, learn that Clive Owen is dying from a gunshot wound, there is every reason the old woman should go along for the best interests of the child.
In the bigger picture, there's really not anyone to side with. There's an evil government that puts people in concentration camps and there's an evil group that blows people up because they hate the government. The world's last pregnant woman is to be brought to "The Human Group", a collection of scientists that we assume are good-intentioned. Why? Because they're friends with Michael Caine. Also friends with Michael Caine is a prison guard who ends up betraying our heroes and tries to steal the baby. There is nothing in the film to suggest that even if the baby makes it to the group will it be any better off. (Other than the fact that they have a boat called "Tomorrow" which, if you really, really think about it, you'll realize is a metaphor.)
Heavy-handed metaphors is where I begin to argue with how the basic theme of the movie is delivered. Essentially, the moral becomes something along the lines of, "no matter how dark the world seems, one must always fight for hope". Alright, that's a strong idea. A little more specific, "hope transcends our differences". Good. That's uplifting. What about, "Let's get over our differences and all believe in the power of Jesus Christ"? And there's where it loses me. The ending of this film feels like the people who hand out brochures in the street, saying that something as misguided as Islam can only lead to violence. Or Judaism. Or Scientology. No, it takes a miracle-baby to put the world right. Bonus points for releasing it on Christmas day.
This is not to say that using the story of Jesus to express hope is wrong. Far from it. It is, like any story, designed to teach something and there are elements to take from it regardless of one's own beliefs. What is wrong is to present the "miracle baby" scenario as a solution in a fictional scenario clearly born of real-life ideological conflict where the very idea of referencing it indicates the lack of understanding that perpetuates the conflict in the first place.
I know this film is getting rave reviews and, while I respect other opinions, I can't help but think that maybe the state of modern sci-fi films is such that it doesn't take a lot to be impressive. Stylistic camera movements seem to overshadow plot, character and logic. Thankfully, we live in a world where babies are being born all the time, saving us from ever having to worry about overpopulation problems.
First and foremost, this is not a film built on its' alleged premise. This is a thinly veiled political commentary on American foreign policy. The issue of childbirth is, at best, a conceit used to demonstrate the lack of hope that permeates the future world and, at worst, far too often, a maguffin. It seems that, in a future where the population has been steadily declining for two decades, there's still one major problem: overpopulation.
The immigrant issue is explained in a brief, 20 second commercial played on a bus; The world is in such shambles that every place but England has managed to destroy itself. Fair enough, but one has to wonder why, to tell such a story, Alfonso Cuaron felt it necessary to A) place it in a future where the situation should logically be far less severe than if the same world-explodes-but-not-England happened today and B) set the film in England at all, a country where, geographically, immigration would seem easier to deter than almost any other country on Earth.
I do feel rather bad about making comparisons without having read P.D. James' original novel (and I promise to fix that in the near future) but a cursory examination of how the two differ (admittedly supplied by Wikipedia research) makes me wonder why Cuaron bothered to adapt the novel in the first place and didn't just write an original story.
The issue of the immigrants, I was not surprised to learn, is very different in the novel. In fact, it's the polar opposite of the film. Since the population can't grow and because people are needed to run a country, England is desperate to attract new citizens. That's the kind of logic that the film is sorely lacking not only in terms of verisimilitude but in terms of sheer creativity. The dystopia of the film, rather than come across as organic, feels like a jumbled mash of everything Cuaron dislikes about modern politics. That's not to say there aren't topics that are easy to side with him on, it's just that to present those topics in the way he does is simply bad storytelling.
Bad storytelling, I must make clear at this point, is why I truly feel that Children of Men is a bad film. It's necessary for one to separate themes that they feel are misguided from poor craftsmanship. So, before I move into discussing some of those themes, I think it's necessary to discuss the manner in which those themes are presented.
As I've said, I feel the basic setup of the world is highly flawed. To an equal extent, though, so are the characters. Clive Owen plays a man who has some kind of job. That's pretty much all the character we have when the film starts. He's depressed, sure. We know this because he drinks. But in a future world where the government hands out suicide drugs to help with depression, the fact that he drinks doesn't really come off as consequential in the least.
We're told he had a baby and later learn that the baby died of lung cancer. This is a mistake. If we're to get any character development we need something that he can make up for. The my-baby-died-randomly doesn't go with this-baby-was-randomly born. In the novel, I've found, the character's child doesn't die from lung cancer; He accidentally runs over him backing out of his driveway. How much more powerful is that? The character is actually at fault for the death of his child. The end of all children all over the world becomes a character driven metaphor for that loss and his role as protector of the pregnant mother becomes an issue of his own redemption. I can't begin to fathom why Cuaron would change something like that outside of a "test audiences don't like characters that kill children" mentality.
Then we have Michael Caine. He plays the exposition. It's hard to imagine a filmmaker having much less respect for their audience than Cuaron must when we hear some of the things that come out of Caine. He tells Owen all about how the world operates as though he were an idiot, oblivious to everything around him. "That's a bus of immigrants," he'll say, "In the future, immigrants are taken to prison camps." "That's a suicide device the government mails people," he'll chime in. It's a real shame that a film that really does have a distinct look to it plays as though it was written for radio.
Almost worse than the dialogue, however, is the editing. The film's strength really lies in its' cinematography but it loses a lot simply in the way that it's cut together. The exposition, you see, doesn't end with Caine. There's actually a shot where the camera gets up, walks over to a shelf and looks at expository mementos as a means of introducing Caine. A shot like this is tantamount to walking into someone's house, greeting them and then saying, "I'll be right back", walking into the next room to read what's on their wall and then returning to the conversation. What's more, we really don't learn anything relevant about Caine that we couldn't have figured out just through character interaction. (We learn he used to be a political cartoonist; This is the film's sly way of saying don't worry, he's a liberal while not giving us anything about his character that actually matters.)
A lot of the action progresses in the same manner and the only attempt at reconciliation is that the characters are viewed as being even dumber than the audience. Clive Owen steals a car that we and he have clearly been told does not start, passing over and sabotaging two other cars to get to it. Guess what? When the chase begins, the car doesn't start.
There's all manner of lesser character that seem to be written in just so they can then be killed in the next scene. By the end, it's actually comical when an old gypsy woman sobs, "Go on without me!" as our heroes board a raft. There's absolutely no reason that she shouldn't board the raft (or that we should care when she doesn't) and, because we, moments later, learn that Clive Owen is dying from a gunshot wound, there is every reason the old woman should go along for the best interests of the child.
In the bigger picture, there's really not anyone to side with. There's an evil government that puts people in concentration camps and there's an evil group that blows people up because they hate the government. The world's last pregnant woman is to be brought to "The Human Group", a collection of scientists that we assume are good-intentioned. Why? Because they're friends with Michael Caine. Also friends with Michael Caine is a prison guard who ends up betraying our heroes and tries to steal the baby. There is nothing in the film to suggest that even if the baby makes it to the group will it be any better off. (Other than the fact that they have a boat called "Tomorrow" which, if you really, really think about it, you'll realize is a metaphor.)
Heavy-handed metaphors is where I begin to argue with how the basic theme of the movie is delivered. Essentially, the moral becomes something along the lines of, "no matter how dark the world seems, one must always fight for hope". Alright, that's a strong idea. A little more specific, "hope transcends our differences". Good. That's uplifting. What about, "Let's get over our differences and all believe in the power of Jesus Christ"? And there's where it loses me. The ending of this film feels like the people who hand out brochures in the street, saying that something as misguided as Islam can only lead to violence. Or Judaism. Or Scientology. No, it takes a miracle-baby to put the world right. Bonus points for releasing it on Christmas day.
This is not to say that using the story of Jesus to express hope is wrong. Far from it. It is, like any story, designed to teach something and there are elements to take from it regardless of one's own beliefs. What is wrong is to present the "miracle baby" scenario as a solution in a fictional scenario clearly born of real-life ideological conflict where the very idea of referencing it indicates the lack of understanding that perpetuates the conflict in the first place.
I know this film is getting rave reviews and, while I respect other opinions, I can't help but think that maybe the state of modern sci-fi films is such that it doesn't take a lot to be impressive. Stylistic camera movements seem to overshadow plot, character and logic. Thankfully, we live in a world where babies are being born all the time, saving us from ever having to worry about overpopulation problems.