Children of Men (2006)
★★★★ — Children of Men (2006)
There are films that feel like they're about the future, and then there are films that feel like they're about right now. Children of Men sits firmly in the second camp, and the longer it sits there, the more unsettling it becomes. I first watched it years ago, but going back to it after living through COVID, the lockdowns, the fear, the strange collective numbness of a world in crisis, it hit me in a way I genuinely wasn't prepared for. This is dystopia without the flourishes. No sleek authoritarian fashion, no grand villain speeches. Just a crumbling Britain that looks depressingly like it's one bad news cycle away from where we already are.
Alfonso Cuarón shoots the whole thing with this restless, documentary energy that makes you feel like you're embedded in it rather than watching from a safe distance. And those long takes. I know I'm supposed to avoid calling anything a masterclass, so let me put it plainly: they are some of the most technically extraordinary sequences I've seen on screen. Chaotic, breathless, and somehow completely controlled beneath the surface. I've admired similar technical ambition in Gravity, another Cuarón film that puts you physically inside its tension, but here the stakes feel more intimate because the world around the camera is rotting in real time.
Clive Owen carries the film on shoulders that are visibly tired, and that's exactly right. His character isn't a hero in any traditional sense. He's a man who's stopped expecting things to get better, dragged back into caring by circumstance rather than conviction. There's no rousing speech, no moment where he finds his purpose and stands tall. He just keeps moving, keeps making the next decision, and Owen plays that exhaustion with complete honesty. The film trusts him not to oversell it, and he doesn't.
What stays with me most, though, is the tonal balance. Children of Men is genuinely bleak. People die suddenly, institutions have collapsed, refugees are caged, and hope has become something people have simply stopped reaching for. And yet the film never wallows. It never lets you settle into comfortable despair. There's something quietly, stubbornly hopeful threading through the whole thing, not in a saccharine way, but in the way that a single moment of human decency in the middle of a warzone can make you catch your breath. That contrast is what makes it linger.
Nearly two decades on, it still hits hard. The world Cuarón builds feels less like a warning and more like a mirror held at a slightly uncomfortable angle. The quiet brutality, the bureaucratic indifference, the way ordinary life carries on in the background of catastrophe. All of it feels grounded in something we recognise, and that's far more frightening than any purely fantastical vision of collapse could be.
Oh, and one more thing: the house used as a filming location also appeared in 28 Weeks Later, which gave me a moment of delighted recognition I wasn't expecting. A small footnote, but I'm glad I spotted it.
Four stars. One of those rare films that actually grows with time rather than dating.
Rating: ★★★★ | Year: 2006 | Watched: 2025-04-15
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: MUBI · MUBI Amazon Channel
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Alfonso Cuarón: Gravity (2013) · Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
More with Clive Owen: Beyond Borders (2003) · Sin City (2005)
More from United Kingdom: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) · Blue (1993)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More science fiction: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Fantastic Planet (1973) · Nightmare City (1980) · The Long Walk (2025)
More thriller: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Angst (1983) · The Long Walk (2025) · Punishment Park (1971)
