Can an infant's voice hold back a world at war with itself?

Rating: 9/10 (3 June 2007)

Bottom-line at the top: If you are an ultra-right wing retrogressive this film will probably anger you. Avoid it, and don't bother reading my review.
Set in mid-21st-century London, Children of Men is a cyber-punk dystopian nightmare which extrapolates from the worst of contemporary political trends to a bleak future where people have stopped procreating and totalitarian militaristic governments have obliterated civil society, closed national borders, and branded everybody expressing dissatisfaction 'terrorist'. And the 'terrorists' themselves are no better.
Theo Faron (Clive Owen) is a disheartened ex-activist and the love of his life - Julian (Julianne Moore) - has just resurfaced asking him for a very big favor. Julian is the leader of a quasi-terrorist organization which wants to reopen Great Britain's borders, and they are trying to help an illegal immigrant who is about to give birth to the first infant the earth has seen in about twenty years to escape to a safe location. Or so it appears at first.
Owen gives the best performance I have seen out of him. Michael Caine lends excellent support (and is particularly well cast in his role). Moore, always good, meets her own very high standards with ease. This is my first film experience with Claire-Hope Ashitey - who is as much the star of this film as Owen. All I can say about Miss Ashitey is "bravo!" - spectacular job with a tough role.
Contrary to many of the comments I have read concerning Children of Men, the film is definitely not low-budget. Seventy-two million dollars is no shoe-string budget, and one does not hire Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine without a decent budget. What's remarkable about allocation of financial resources for this film, however, is how invisible the budget is (besides the expensive cast). The special effects are so well done that they achieve subtlety and are almost unnoticeable - very rare in contemporary sci-fi.
Cuaron's direction is equally invisible, and flawless. Without resorting to shaky-cam clichés and intentionally degraded cinematography, he achieves a documentary feel - but only when he needs it. The sets are perfect, as is the lighting and camera-work. The cinematography creates more than just mood - it embellishes a completely immersive and quite disturbing context for the entire film. Dark, dirty and degraded, Cuaron creates a world where hope survives only despite life itself, and only in a few. Whether you interpret human infertility as a wake-up call from God or a natural evolutionary process is your own muddle - don't bother spreading it, the result is much the same.
This is a heavy film, but does not present its subject in a heavy-handed manner. What is disturbing about it is how easy it is, given the state of the world's politics and the expert craftsmanship of the film, to believe. The connection between the world of today and that of the film is made particularly clear by the set shots in Jasper Palmer's (Michael Caine) house. Palmer, a former journalist who has exiled himself from 'civilization', has newspaper clippings all over his walls which decry the invasion of Iraq and several yet-to-happen humanitarian catastrophes. Sure, none of what this movie predicts is likely to happen but what's frightening is how possible it actually seems.
Highly recommended for open-minded, thinking people.