It is 2027, 19 years after the youngest human being was born, and hours after his murder. In a world that makes the 9/11 aftermath look positively cheerful, a detached journalist has to deliver a pregnant refugee into the hands of a syndicate that will be able to protect her from the totalitarian administration. Children of Men is Science Fiction. Or is it?

Children of Men is directed, co-written and edited by Alfonso Cuarón and he has constructed a place that is very close to home. Science it may be, but fiction? Not so much. The world-order of Children of Men seems one step away from where we live today. With a colour palette that appears bled from bright colours, art direction that is skilfully messy and a soundtrack that, song by song, supports the images and actions, Cuarón creates a future that smells of holocaust and despair. Children of Men considers what would happen to mankind when there is no next generation to hope and strive for, and comes to a daunting conclusion.

In this version of 2027, technological development has all but halted; terrorist acts are a fact of life; dehumanisation is the rule; the final countdown between nature and mankind is – narrowly – undecided; funerals become religion based protest marches and vice versa; and places are called refugee camps in the same way Auschwitz was called a labour camp. The scary part is it all looks so familiar, like a slightly exaggerated version of today. Much in the same way Syriana told the viewer: this is how we live now; Children of Men tells the viewer: this is what the near future holds, if we don’t start paying attention. Cuarón is telling us: wake up people. This is the apocalypse. And lest we watch out, it’s right around the corner.

Adroitly directing Children of Men, Cuarón plays with light and dark, focus and blur and the colouring of the footage, all to enhance the content of his film. Every choice, however artful it may be, serves a specific purpose. This is no ‘oh look what a clever boy I am’-posturing; Cuarón is on a mission, it seems. And occasionally he fails: there are some setpieces in the film that are over the top, clashing with the sincerity of the other material. These sequences look like low budget rejects from Mad Max, and at those (albeit rare) moments, Children of Men becomes a parody.

And unfortunately the acting is downright mediocre. So what? I hear you think. Well, the actors are Clive Owen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Caine, Charlie Hunam and Julianne Moore, that’s what! Owen, Ejiofor and Hunam give merely acceptable performances. Moore is more than acceptable, but her part is too small to make a difference. The exception is a very good Michael Caine. Playing a peacemongering recluse, Caine (coincidentally or not looking like John Lennon may have looked, had he lived) radiates the sense of quiet bravery found in a man who has long ago resigned to doing what he must, but never losing his sense of humour about it. Cain’s character seems to say: ofcourse there is no hope, but don’t let it get you down.

Despite these shortcomings, most of the time Cuarón gets it right. Children of Men is touching, violent, endearing, harsh, tender and alienating in well-measured doses. And near the end Cuarón submerges us into a chaos that is so realistic and shrill it becomes unsettling. Which, at that point, is right where we ought to be.

Current day cinema is seriously lacking in intelligent Sci-Fi. Nearly every movie taking place in the future is of the ‘the aliens are coming to get us, lets blast them out of the sky’-variety. Most Philip K. Dick storylines have been used up by now, and (the likes of Serenity notwithstanding) there isn’t much around to substitute or equal his material. That’s why Children of Men is special. Despite the occasional bad directorial choice and its mediocre acting, it is sharp, honest, wry, and much bigger than its flaws.