A good movie that could have been great.

Rating: 6/10 (13 November 2016)

My biggest beef with "Children of Men" is that it strays so wildly from P.D. James' book - not even necessarily in plot line or character qualities (though it does do that) but thematically and morally. The book is quite explicitly (and implicitly) Christian in its narrative arc and in the protagonist's crisis of conscience and evolution. The creators of the film appear to have deliberately omitted this crucial underpinning of the novel, only making a shallow nod to it in the midwife's loopy pastiche of new-age spirituality. I found the midwife incredibly irritating in the movie, incidentally, whereas I didn't in the book. Luke is a completely different character in the movie than he is in the book - and I mean COMPLETELY different. Unrecognizable. I know, it's an adaption of the book, and a facsimile shouldn't be expected... but I resent the almost complete excoriation of what I believe to be the author's intent in telling a redemptive story based in Christianity. To me, this is not really an adaptation of the book but an entirely different story with a similar premise. Stylistically, it is incredibly well done, the acting is fabulous, Clive Owen is brilliant, and there are some beautiful scenes (Theo escorting Kee out of the crumbling building comes to mind). But, having read the book, the film rang shallow overall to me.
Also, a mild peeve: I get that bad guys use rough language. That's realistic. But the f-word as noun, verb and adjective in the same sentence, over and over and over? Incredibly annoying.