Children of Men

Children of Men  (film)
Type	fiction
Publication date	2006
Author(s)	• Alfonso Cuarón • Timothy J. Sexton • David Arata • Mark Fergus • Hawk Ostby • P.D. James
Subjects	depopulation
All of humanity has been infertile for 20 years in connection with flu pandemic, but never explains its cause.

Children of Men is a science fiction action-thriller film co-written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón. The year is 2027, and women can no longer give birth after two decades of human infertility. The youngest inhabitant of the planet has just died at the age of 18, and all hope for humanity has been lost. As civilization descends into chaos, a dying world finds one last chance for survival in the form of a woman who has become inexplicably pregnant. The screenplay, based on P. D. James' 1992 novel The Children of Men, was credited to five writers.

Plot

In the year 2027, after 18 years of total human infertility, war and global depression push society to the point of collapse as humanity faces extinction. The United Kingdom, one of the few remaining nations with a functioning government, is deluged by refugees fleeing from chaos in their own countries. In response to this mass influx, the UK has become a police state as the British Army arrests, imprisons or executes illegal immigrants.

Theo Faron, a former activist turned cynical bureaucrat, is kidnapped by the Fishes, a militant immigrant rights group. They are led by Theo's estranged wife, Julian Taylor, from whom he separated after their son's death during a 2008 flu pandemic. Julian offers Theo money to acquire transit papers for a young refugee, Kee. Theo obtains the papers from his cousin, a government minister who runs a state-sponsored collection of salvaged art. Theo agrees to escort Kee in exchange for a larger sum of money. Luke, a Fishes member, drives Theo, Kee, and former midwife Miriam towards Canterbury. An armed gang ambushes them, and Julian is killed. Two police officers stop their car, but Luke kills them, and the group hides Julian's body before heading to a Fishes safehouse.

Kee reveals to Theo that she is pregnant, making her the only pregnant woman on Earth. Julian had intended to hand Kee to the Human Project, a secretive scientific group in the Azores dedicated to curing humanity's infertility. However, Luke persuades Kee to stay, and he is voted as the new leader of the Fishes. That night, Theo eavesdrops on a discussion and learns that Julian's death was orchestrated by the Fishes so that Luke could become their leader; they intend to kill Theo and use the baby as a political tool to support the coming revolution. Theo wakes Kee and Miriam, and they steal a car, escaping to the secluded hideaway of Theo's aging friend Jasper Palmer, a former political cartoonist turned pot dealer.

The group makes plans to board the Human Project ship, the Tomorrow, which will arrive offshore at Bexhill-on-Sea disguised as a fishing vessel. Jasper proposes having Syd, an immigration cop to whom he frequently sells drugs, smuggle them into Bexhill as refugees. The next day, when the Fishes discover Jasper's house, the group flees while Jasper stays behind to stall the Fishes. Luke shoots and kills Jasper as Theo watches from the woods. The group meets Syd at an abandoned school, and he helps them board a bus to Bexhill - an entire city converted into a refugee camp. When Kee experiences contractions at a checkpoint, Miriam distracts a guard by feigning religious mania and is taken away.

Inside the camp, Theo and Kee meet a Romani woman, Marichka, who provides a room where Kee gives birth to a baby girl. The next day, Syd informs Theo and Kee that war has broken out between the British military and the refugees, led by the Fishes. Having learned that they have a bounty on their heads, Syd attempts to capture them, but Theo kills him with Marichka's help, and they escape. The group heads to a hidden rowboat amidst the fighting, but the Fishes capture Kee and the baby. Theo tracks them to an apartment building under heavy fire; he confronts Luke, who is killed in an explosion, and escorts Kee and the baby out. Awed by the baby, the British soldiers and Fishes temporarily stop fighting and allow the trio to leave. Marichka leads them to the boat but chooses to stay behind as they depart.

As British fighter jets conduct airstrikes on Bexhill, the trio row to the rendezvous point, and Theo reveals that he was shot and wounded by Luke. He teaches Kee how to burp her baby, and Kee tells Theo she will name her Dylan after Theo and Julian's lost son. Theo loses consciousness and presumably dies as the Tomorrow approaches.

Background News

The background environment is developed through clips from commercials, print newspapers and television news visible in the film. Among the semi-historical facts cited are:

• A worldwide infertility rate of 25% as of December 2008, the last birth on June 21, 2009.
• The destruction by nuclear fire of New York, much of Africa and Kazakhstan.
• The military occupation of Cincinnati.
• The marketing of fake and killer “fertility drugs” alongside legal drugs like newer anti-depressants (Niagra, Bliss) and suicide kits (Quietus).
• Mad cow disease
• The increased surveillance of British mosques by the police.
• The bombing of Saudi oil wells, endangering global supplies.
• The conversion of towns in southern England into refugee camps (fictional article dated February 11, 2020).
• The denial by the British Prime Minister of acts of torture at the initiative of his government.
• The ban on all immigration to the United Kingdom.
• The closure of the Channel Tunnel.
• The Siege of Seattle (thousandth day on November 16, 2027).

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