Children of Men…

My wife and I went to see Children of Men the other night. Summary on the BBC site here. Wow… what an unremitting stream of negative experience. We came out of the cinema feeling emotionally and psychologically mugged.

Even after reading that summary, I wasn’t prepared for what was coming in the film. Pain, death, depression, filth, violence - continuously, for the whole length of a film with such an uber-twee ending that it just looks completely and utterly incongruous. The ‘hopefullness’ which is being offered at the end to mitigate the previous 108 minutes of hell requires such a suspension of disbelief that it brings a dream-like fantasy quality to the conclusion of a blood, guts and snot movie.

Not just a weird movie but so not for the big screen. The long scenes, the pseudo-journo camerawork and the utter Britishness of the content makes it seem like it should be on Channel4 or Film4 or BBC3 or something.

Strong, challenging and if it had a deeper or more metaphorical meaning other than the superficial nihilism up on screen, I didn’t get it.

Clive Owen, however, demonstrates his fantastic versatility and Michael Caine shines.

See it, make your own mind up… and pass on your reactions.