Monday, September 3, 2007

Week 14: Children of Men

Whoever wrote Children of Men, and I'm frankly too lazy to look it up on IMDB, has an obvious hard-on for Margaret Atwood. She of the dystopian doomsday futuristic novels I had to slug through in every miserable women's studies class I took in college. [Teacher: let's take back the night! Me: I was really hoping to watch TV tonight. I'll take it back tomorrow. Next Tuesday at the latest.]

In Children of Men, the year is 2027 and women of the world mysteriously stopped getting pregnant 18 years ago. Without the hope of a future, society has crumbled. Lawlessness and chaos rule. And just like in every futuristic/doomsday movie, everyone is dirty and wears only black. Like The Gap honestly couldn't survive a social holocaust. Gap stores are like cockroaches. You can't kill 'em. Someone out there has to own some khaki.

Our black-wearing hero of the story is Clive Owen, who gets roped into joining a band of people shepherding a miracle: a young pregnant girl carrying the first human baby on the planet in nearly two decades. It is never quite clear who her protectors are hiding her from and why. There is a lot of talk of getting her to "The Human Project," although we never learn what the project is. It sounds like somewhere you'd want to go though if you were carrying the world's only baby. And wherever they go, people mysteriously start showing up and shooting indiscriminately at them. It's all very stressful and grim. It made me want to put on a yellow sundress and bake bread.

I've said it before that Michael Caine plays the role of Michael Caine in every movie and Children of Men is no exception. He's still the lovable, comfortable old slipper, only this time with longer hair. You see, the longer hair makes it unexpected.

I won't tell you how the movie ends but let's just say it involves a lot of dirty people shooting other dirty people in an attempt to protect the pregnant gal from something or other. Who could tell?

I took this movie to be a parable for the life-sustaining hope a baby injects into any situation. Like how after I had my baby, I now weep openly at Pampers commercials. It is embarrassing, but there is something hopeful in it, even for a cynic like me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i wanted to punch that baby in the head for crying too much.

Labels