Children of Men

The 2006 Sci-Fi/Thriller/Drama Children of Men was directed by Alfonso Cuaron - the director of Y Tu Mama Tambien. The screenplay was written by a team of five writers: Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby. The original story, however, comes from The Children of Men, a novel by P. D. James.

The film has a very documentary feel to it; the opening titles and the end credits are both black screens with big, white, block text with the background noise being the sound of children playing. The plot is set in the near-future, a future where women have become infertile. There have been no children born for 18 years, and the youngest person on Earth has just been killed. Suddenly Theo Faron (played by Clive Owen) finds himself in the middle of a chaotic rescue mission. His ex-wife (played by Julianne Moore) enlists his help to bring a young girl from the city to the shore so she can catch a boat to the mysterious "Human Project." It turns out that the young girl, Kee, is pregnant; she is a precious commodity and some people plan to use the baby as a beacon of hope for the world. They would put the baby in potential harm, because being the world's youngest person automatically forces the baby into the limelight.

Theo has to help Kee escape from the people who want to use her, from the police who believe them to be terrorists, and the prison that they willingly break into in order to get closer to the shore. The cameras are hand-held cameras; in shots when Theo is running, the camera follows him bumping over the road. The plot also has a semi-conclusion, but ends in a very abrupt manner. Rather than fading out of the scene into the end credits, it cuts immediately from the scene to a black screen with the white block letters that say Children of Men. It is a creative film that takes an interesting approach to the subject of infertility. It uses interesting camera angles and sounds; for example, in the beginning, when Theo is near a bomb that explodes, the high pitch ringing in his ears continues through several of the following scenes. Julianne Moore's character explains that the sound he hears is part of his ear that is dying, and he will never be able to hear that pitch again.