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Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men certainly qualifies as science fiction. It takes place in a future that's most notable for the fact that all women have been infertile for almost 20 years. But Cuaron, working from a P.D. James novel, doesn't spend much time exploring why this happened nor laying out the foundations of the brutal world that's taken shape in the years since. Children of Men is a human drama about a few people struggling to survive and bring new life into that world, and they aren't aloof from its chaos. Despite the complexity of the scenario, much of which is never explained, it's totally believable. This is a bold, utterly confident film that pulls us along with its constantly moving protagonists even as it shocks and reviles us. Cuaron's Y Tu Mama Tambien was not a fluke. He's created another masterpiece that, like Y Tu Mama and other great films such as Fellini's La Dolce Vita, is like a single, drawn-out gesture that expresses something no mere story ever could. (They work best on the big screen, taking advantage of what my friend Ross calls the "act of God" effect: You can't turn it off.)
Britain in 2027 is strikingly familiar, obsessed with aging, scarcity, terrorism, surveillance, and immigration control. But Children of Men isn't a political screed: Like its central characters, the movie doesn't trust politics, neither radical nor authoritarian. All these characters are well-rounded, coming off harshly at first, as people would tend to do in a cold, dark era. They're reluctant rebels, not righteous crusaders. Not surprisingly, the dimming human world is chaotic, with the government keeping immigrants and dissidents in pens while desperate terrorists turn on one another. As easy as it is to get drawn in to Children of Men, the film is often hard to watch. Relief comes in the form of Michael Caine as Jasper Palmer, a white-bearded old radical who lives in a bucolic hippie-style home and and keeps a sense of humor about the absurd depths the world has reached. Caine's is the very best of a set of performances that's phenomenal, including that of star Clive Owen.
But the way the actors embody these characters and their struggle is a testament most of all to Cuaron, who similarly created a film about Death in the form of a sunny road-trip movie in Y Tu Mama. Both concern journeys to a destination that may not exist and destinies that may not be understood. We don't really know where either film is taking us until we get there, but that's why it's worth making this kind of trip again and again.