Whatever happened to Clive Owen? Re-watching his stoic, quietly wounded turn in Children of Men, it becomes suddenly easy to remember a time when he was a very plausible frontrunner to lead the gritty reworking of the Bond franchise, before Daniel Craig and his flinty gaze made the role so irretrievably his own. The upshot is that Children of Men's Theo, a jaded everyman turned reluctant savior of humanity, might remain Owen's most iconic role.
But no single performance in this none-more-bleak adaptation of PD James's novel stands out above that of director Alfonso Cuarón. It's the world he creates, a vivid and pitiless vision of a dystopian future Britain, that feels like the story's real protagonist; its backstory is compelling, its development surprising, and its fate is where the film's dramatic stakes lie.
London, 2027. A chillingly recognizable W1 street. The human race is limping along with one foot in the grave, after 18 years of infertility has stamped out its future. Britain, the world's last functioning government, has become a police state that hunts down illegal immigrants "like cockroaches" and hands out state-sanctioned suicide drugs to its despairing citizens ("Quietus: You decide when").
Even before they start getting picked off in brutal, blunt succession, it's plain that Theo and his cohorts - including Julianne Moore's resistance leader and Michael Caine's Lennon-inspired hippie - aren't meant to survive their own story. With the exception of young refugee Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), whose miraculous pregnancy has made her both vital for humanity's future and vulnerable to political exploitation, they are expendable pawns in a much broader machine.
Cuarón gets an Orwellian reference in early as Theo arrives for work at the Nineteen Eighty-Four-esque 'Ministry of Energy', but Winston Smith's lot looks positively cushy in comparison to this future.
Much has been made of Gravity's breathtaking extended single takes, and watching Children of Men the groundwork is laid plainly: Cuarón creates the illusion of several lengthy one-take sequences (all of which were in fact filmed in sections). The closing siege set piece is the longest and the most famous, but more striking is the devastating four-minute car ambush, in which Moore's Julian is abruptly gunned down amid a rare moment of levity.
The screenplay works best in broad strokes - as Pam Ferris's level-headed former midwife Pam movingly recalls her experience when the infertility epidemic began, musing: "It's very odd, what happens in a world without children's voices." It's less successful in close-up, most notably between former lovers Theo and Julian, whose tragic history never quite translates in their on-screen chemistry. Cuarón's quasi-documentarian approach, all wide angles and deep focus, creates an evocative sense of chaos and alienation but can't quite get a grip on intimacy.
Nonetheless, Children of Men is one of the most wrenching and plausible future-set films ever made, steering clear of easy religious allegory in favor of a more ambiguous, politically nuanced message. With its emphasis on the loss of youth and the redemptive potential of birth, it's a brutal but compelling companion piece to Gravity.