This movie was a real disappointment. I should know better than to believe what everyone else says about a movie. I went to this movie with the expectation that it had a great story. The movie was well crafted, but the story was crap. The movie was based on the book "The Children of Men" by P.D. James. James primarily writes crime fiction novels. I've read a few and have enjoyed them. I haven't read "The Children of Men", but what I've read about the book tells me that the movie adaptation is very different. The one point that the two share seems to be that there are no children being born.
I think what disappointed me most about this movie is that I thought it was very sexist. I hated the fact that every woman in the movie was either killed off by some man or was nearly helpless. For example, it seemed false that the woman who was carrying the only child in nearly two decades was unable care for herself. People were trying to protect her but she didn't seem to do anything to protect herself or her baby. I thought it interesting that she spent so much time with a midwife and didn't seem very prepared for childbirth. I can't be too critical because it is a rather stressful moment, but I would think the midwife would have spent plenty of time coaching her. I also thought it was interesting that she never breastfed her baby. The fact that she had a baby seemed more important than the fact that she was a mother who needed to care for her baby.
I think by far the most disappointing part of this movie was the homage to Die Hard. Who's stupid idea was it to have Theo spend most of the movie in bare feet as John McClain did in the first Die Hard movie? The first shot of his stocking feet squishing through the mud was funny, but the subsequent scenes where the shoes didn't fit and he had to wear flip flops were just stupid.
Ugh, I could go on and on about how much I didn't like the story. I won't even waste my time on the holes in it. (I hope the book is better. ) However, there were some great scenes in the movie. For example, there is a scene at Jasper's where Miriam, Jasper and Kee are talking. The shot is framed with Theo in the foreground in the left of the screen. The other three are in the background on the right of the screen. As Jasper, Miriam, and Kee talk, they begin discussing what happened to Theo's son, Dylan. Theo is listening in on their conversation. As the story unfolds, his expression changes to show how painful the memory is for him. A great moment, and use of the wide shot, but wasn't it redundant? Didn't we already know how deeply he was effected by his son's death through his interactions with Julia? Couldn't more time been spent on developing Kee in the movie? There were a lot of scenes like this where there were wonderful moments that worked well, but seemed to fall short. These moments did not turn the whole into a great movie for me, only one that seemed to focus on one male and his perspective on a failing world. Don't we get enough of that already?
at January 26, 2007 11:08 PMIsn't PD James a woman? Or two women? Am I thinking of a different author? I hope the book is better than what you describe! Maybe I will check it out (as if I had the time!)
Posted by: Rebecca at February 9, 2007 9:43 AMpd james is a woman. pj tracy is the other crime fiction author that i like who is a mother-daughter writing team.
i plan on buying the book. i'll have to let you know if it's better.
my thoughts on this movie, see it when it's on netflicks. don't waste your hard earned money on it.
Posted by: hope at February 9, 2007 10:11 AMI liked this movie better than you did but not as much as the critics. I think it was visually stunning, and the direction is brilliant. But the plot did leave me wanting more. I guess I enjoyed it more because I didn't really analyze it as much. I just sat back and watched. Some movies shouldn't get too much thought. I think this is one of those. But I did enjoy *watching* it. I guess I just paid a lot more attention to the camera shots than I did to the plotline.
Posted by: Jill at February 17, 2007 10:42 AMyeah, i over analyze a lot of movies. i can't help myself! it's my nature to do so. i am not always so critical...read the entry on the fast and the furious: tokyo drift. that wasn't anything but cheap entertainment, but i sure liked it.
unfortunately, when the director pisses me off by making a crappy female character and by killing off all the good ones it's difficult to turn of the critic in me. . It's also difficult to turn off the feminist in me, that sees this kind of thing in movies all the time and sees that women around me don't even bat an eye at it. movies that are sexist and racist go unnoticed because they look pretty. it's just a distraction, like the old magic trick in which the canary disappears by being crushed in the bottom of the cage. i still haven't decided yet if the director was intentionally doing these things to proke some kind of a response. he probably was, but i can tell you that if he was, not many people caught it.
next time you watch this movie, don't get distracted by the fancy camera work. you've seen it now and can overlook it. ask why it needs to be fancy. what does it mean to show us 7 minutes of continuous footage of a guy running around chasing after a woman and her baby, but to never show us even 5 seconds of that mother feeding her baby.
Posted by: hope at February 18, 2007 11:45 PMI will definitely keep all of that in mind if I ever see it again! This movie is also a good example of why I think it's best to approach every movie possible with very low expectations. That way, you won't be disappointed. ;-)
Posted by: Jill at February 19, 2007 10:35 AMHope, I'm so with you on this. I didn't immediately notice the sexism (shame on me) but it sure didn't take much thought to find it. After reading the plot of the book, I was further angered that the infertility was turned around to be the fault of women.
I thought there were a lot of bad turns plot-wise. The dredlock guy kept showing up. I'm not saying that the characters shouldn't have hurdles to jump over on their way to the finish line, but to continuously jump over that same one? It gives the audience *no* feeling of any kind of progress. What does it matter if they get to the Tomorrow if the dredlock guy is going to find a way to swim out to the buoy and kill them?
Speaking of the Tomorrow...why should we want them to get there? We were never given any kind of assurance that it was actually the place to be. It was given the same weight as the FISH group and they turned out to be a group of assholes. Are we suddenly supposed to think that the Tomorrow is good because the assholes don't want her to get there?
Hated this movie.
Posted by: Kate at February 21, 2007 1:29 PM