What happens to society if the human race becomes infertile?

Rating: 9/10 (8 May 2007)

That is the primary question raised in this film. Male and female fertility problems are steadily on the increase, and while it may be difficult to reconcile the sudden and total loss of fertility in Children of Men with real trends, nonetheless it is a condition that has real potential, and the possibility haunts us all. The scene is 2027, and global civilisation has collapsed after 18 years of human infertility; at least, that is what has happened if the British government are to be believed. They preside over a nation held in the grip of totalitarianism, a police state obsessed with the detrimental effects a wave of immigrant humanity will bring to the "last bastion of civilisation". Against this regime are a small but committed group of terrorist revolutionaries who hold a secret that will tear apart the fabric of this fragile society. Children of Men is an excellent example of a neo-futuristic apocalypse. The notion of human infertility has been explored before in The Handmaid's Tale, but the focus in that story was the oppression and "slavery" of the few women who remained fertile. Children of Men explores the breakdown of society that ensues as its primary subject. It is beautifully shot, the director (Alfonso Cuaron) choosing his shots with precision in almost every scene. The actors all deliver good performances, the script is tight and the scenario in which the people find themselves is utterly believable. Finally, set in 2027, the futurism is pitched to perfection; not so far into the future as to demand huge technological leaps forward, it is restricted to huge advert displays on the sides of buildings, moving image adverts on the sides of buses, and a virtual holocube computer game controlled with finger styluses, the sort of technology that one imagines would be freely available in spite of the obvious collapse of societal infrastructure. These are peripheral things that never interfere with the story. The only flaw that I could level at the film, a common one in films these days, is that there was a discrepancy between the sound levels for the dialogue and the background noise/effects sounds, such that the dialogue sounds muffled and difficult to make out in places. I saw this film on DVD, so it may be that the sound was pitched more evenly at the cinema, but this remains one of the most irritating aspects of home cinema.