A dark, bleak, harsh, and gloomy reality—yet there are people who still hold on to hope. Children of Men is unlike any other sci-fi film in the genre. A novel concept along with a tight plot and breathtaking cinematography. For those who haven’t seen it and are wondering if it’s worth watching—the answer is yes. Just go and watch it. I will be discussing the movie in detail now, so a spoiler warning is in order. Since it’s a 2006 movie so it’s only fair I discuss spoilers almost 20 years later.
The Concept
Concept of the movie is surrounded around an infertility crisis; it has been almost 18 years since the last child birth. This in itself is an interesting concept but then pair it with very well realized consequences of the infertility crisis, what you get is a very grounded science fiction movie. Since there is an infertility crisis, people have very less future prospects, they don’t have goals left to work towards, which has left many governments in anarchy. Only Country standing is the UK. Since UK is the last one, it is being bombarded with a refugee crisis, which the government is dealing with by just deporting the refugees or sending them to camps. Talk about a bleak reality. Overall, Children of Men is as good as a concept one can get from a movie.
Plot
Plot revolved around our protagonist, Theo Faron played by Clive Owen. A man who has lost his own child in a pandemic and lost his marriage shortly after that. The character is well portrayed as one can see the thematic shifts in the movie through the shift of actions and behavior of that character. Main goal of the plot is that Theo finds a girl, who is pregnant. This Pregnant girl represents the hope for the future but wants to be used for political means by different parties. Goal of Theo is to get this pregnant girl Kee (played by Clare-Hope Ashitey) to the human project. Human project is a so called research vessel or an organization that could help out Kee. The real conflict of the matter is that Kee is a refugee, which complicated everything. Whole story is about going through different obstacles and situations so that Kee can be safely delivered to the human project while surviving life or death every second along the way.
Acting
Everyone in the movie does a great job but I gotta mention that Clive Owen was for me the stand out. His reactions to different situations, his subtle changes in demeanor in different circumstances were so well done that you almost forget that you are watching a movie. Micheal Cane being a brief appearance in the movie is a scene steals. Julianne Moore as a rebel leader and ex-wife of Theo plays her part quite well. Her character is paired very well against Clive Owens, both of them representing different mindset yet share the same mindset, pretty poetic.
Cinematography
Oh my god! Children of Men has one of the best cinematography I have seen. The colors are perfect, shots are framed extremely well and the oners that this movie pulls are just brilliant. There are a few oners in here that are to believe, camera moving in and out of car seamlessly making me confused on how did they even shoot that. There was also a fake blood stain on the camera that didn’t get removed because no one heard the “cut” by the DP. Details like that make this movie even better. The cinematography achieved what it set out do, it achieved in making me believe I was right there in the movie experiencing it all. All respect goes to Emmanuel Lubezki for being such a great Cinematographer & Alfonso Cuarón for such a great direction.
Verdict
Children of men is one of the best movies to be ever made. I don’t say this lightly tho, it is very hard for me to find any flaws in this movie. If you have not seen it, please watch it. Kind of cliche to say but in 2026 this movie feels more relevant than it did in 2006.
By the way I still don’t know why the movie is called “Children of Men”, I have a few theories but am not sure. Comment down below if you know why….
Leave a Reply