Saturday, March 31, 2007

Children of Meh: Color me disappointed

WARNING: IF YOU HAVEN'T YET SEEN CHILDREN OF MEN, THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW! I'LL LEAVE A BIT OF SPACE.





Last night, I finally got to see Children of Men. I've been wanting to see this for awhile, in no small part because I generally find Clive Owen interesting. I like his voice, too. A lot.

Alas, I was not terribly impressed, and this movie provides yet another example of why movie reviewers and I often don't see eye-to-eye. See, I don't care how visually impressive a movie is. I don't care about the great camera work or the lighting. I only notice if it's bad. I want a good story, and I also want to feel satisfied at the end.

Why didn't Children of Men work for me? Well, I'd have to say the "spoiler" in the trailer -- she's pregnant! -- didn't do a whole lot to add to the suspense. I mean, we knew going in that Clive Owen was supposed to help the pregnant girl get...somewhere. And it wasn't going to be easy.

My theory is, if you're going to divulge a key plot point in the trailer, for heaven's sake, put that plot point at the beginning. Otherwise, it seems like a long, long set-up to get to the surprise that's no surprise.

It was never clear to me just what fate might await the baby's mother and/or child if they were taken by the government. Was she going to be separated from her child? If she's nursing? Surely, given this is the future, they would be aware that nursing is good. Were they going to "study" them intensely and subject them to probes of many kinds to figure out why she could bear children? If so, this wasn't particularly clear. I could just as easily believe that yes, she'd be examined and samples taken (just like if you're pregnant now) but that they'd also be sheltered and coddled and treated with great care (especially considering the fate of the last "youngest person on the planet"). Given the alternative world of the film (grim does not begin to describe it), that cushy fate didn't seem so bad an alternative. Of course, you could compare it to a gilded cage, but if the alternative is a sewer? Gilding's looking mighty fine.

Speaking of alternatives, what the heck was The Human Project? What was it supposed to be? This was not at all clear to me -- and so I had no particular reason to believe going to them would be any better than taking a chance in Britain, especially when the "freedom fighters" turned out to have their own agenda for using the baby. Without any evidence, I simply couldn't believe that the folks at The Human Project were going to, without doubt, treat them better than the others.

I couldn't quite buy into the notion that the great disaster of no babies occurred so quickly. Over a decade, and so gradually that by the time people realized what was happening, it was too late to prevent? Yep. In a year? That's a stretch.

There was so little to explain the motivation of Clive Owens' character, and to me, this was a huge problem. He'd been a renegade, and then...not. Was it the death of his son that prompted the switch? But why? How and why did the death change his mindset? And what prompted him to decide to help the baby's mother? When he makes that decision, he doesn't yet know about the pregnancy. The only thing I really got was, "Just 'cause his ex-wife asked him to." So, like, he still loved her? I guess, since I wasn't given any other reason.

What the heck made the world go to hell in a hand basket? So they realized babies weren't being born and...let's riot? Let's just attack somebody? Wouldn't the smart folks be more prone to, I dunno, protect who's left, especially the younger ones? Wouldn't that tend to lessen the chances of conflict? Call me Polly-Anna (Hey, you're Polly-anna!) but without any background to explain the problems, I was left baffled.

I could have bought the premise of the story more if there were still some people who could have children (the haves) vs. those who couldn't (the have-nots) and especially if those have-nots were barren because of pollution caused by the businesses of the haves. OTOH, this is kind of a cliche, isn't it? But I just didn't understand why the world would go nuts without "the sound of children's voices."

And don't get me started on that babbling, possibly Gypsy woman with the dog.

One thing that was crystal clear was the comparison to xenophobic elements in today's society and the extremes to which it could lead. And this came down like a sledgehammer on the ol' cranium. I got it the first time, 'kay? Really. I'm not dense -- but I don't like to be scratching my head several times, either.

There's a line between intriguing and baffling to frustration. Writers face this all the time, especially at the beginning of a book. You want to tell enough so that the reader's curious, but you don't want to be so enigmatic they give up and think, "Nuts to this. I'm checking my email."

There was one moment of genuine surprise for me in this movie -- when Julianne Moore's character died. But I was shocked not because of that element of the story. I was surprised because she's a big-name actress, so I wasn't expecting her to be killed, and certainly not in the first half of the film.

In short, I won't be getting the DVD.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I respect your opinion, however I believe that your interpretation is rather naive.

" There was so little to explain the motivation of Clive Owens' character, and to me, this was a huge problem. He'd been a renegade, and then...not. Was it the death of his son that prompted the switch? But why? How and why did the death change his mindset? And what prompted him to decide to help the baby's mother? When he makes that decision, he doesn't yet know about the pregnancy. The only thing I really got was, "Just 'cause his ex-wife asked him to." So, like, he still loved her? I guess, since I wasn't given any other reason."

What do you think makes people activists, revolutionaries, etc? Is it not the belief that they can somehow make the world a better place, for thier children, grandchildren, mankind in general? Now imagine there is no future for the human race, what would be the point? Essentially , in the movie, the world has beome collectively depressed, overcome with ennui. A very basic human need to somehow leave a mark on this world (through say, a blog), to leave it a better place (through art, politics, education, reproduction)has been extinguished.

Theo is quite clearly originally motivated by the offer of money. I'm surprised that you missed this plot point as it was reiterated several times. Theo is essentially a hero with no hope - unable to muster the passion to be heroic - until he realizes that Kee is pregnant and sees, however small, a glimmer of hope, something to fight for.

Frankly, the semantics of how the human race became sterile, how Kee could actually be the solution, the Human Project, etc. are all irrelevant. This movie is about the power of hope and how it makes us human, and gives our lives purpose.

This is a profoundly egalitarian movie. If you notice there are no close-ups, which is very unusual in a movie (close-ups are a manipulative technique employed to tell us how to feel). Never is the individual more important than the the surroundings or the other characters - just like in life. Also, are we not on a journey with cleo? Does he know why humans have become sterile? Does he know how Klee can save the world? Of course not. Frankly we are so used to having all of the pieces of the puzzle, being omniscient as moviegoers, that a far more realistic and organic viewing experience is jarring to us. No movie I have seen in the last two decades has made me think more than this movie, and mark my words, prole will be watching and debating this movie long after you and I are both dead and buried.