What If?
Children of Men
(R)
originally published January 10, 2007
Clive Owen
Can you conjure the sadness, the immense weight of hopelessness of a world without children? Prophetic filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón, the first director to get Harry Potter right, has, and his nightmarish yet agile Children of Men looks frighteningly familiar. In 2027, humanity is infertile and has been for 18 years. Fertility tests are mandatory, illegal fugees - short for refugees - are corralled into concentration camps, and “only Britain soldiers on.” Bureaucrat and former activist Theo Faron (Clive Owen, radiating world-weary humor and reluctant heroism) soldiers on by escaping to the hidden country home of exiled political cartoonist Jasper Palmer (Michael Caine). Theo’s dead existence is painfully revived by ex-wife Julian (Julianne Moore), leader of the Fishes, a terrorist organization fighting the government over their treatment of illegal immigrants. Julian tasks Theo with protecting the world’s one seed of hope, pregnant fugee Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), an errand made nearly impossible with the anarchic state of constant warring in the streets and the countryside. Children’s most breathtakingly alarming scene - a forested ambush worthy of Mad Max, a post-apocalyptic filmic conversation to which Children adds several intelligent counterpoints - takes place away from the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle.
As with HP3, Cuarón creates a tangible fake world through an incredibly inventive use of locations. His 2027 is the future of today. Seeing so much of our world in his bleak dead end sears with horror. I find the post-apocalypse of fascism, selfishness and survivalism to be much more terrifying than the horror flicks I adore for their escapist bloodletting. Cuarón, ever a light and playful conjurer, swoops over the burning landscapes and bounds through the often chillingly brutal shocks of violence. His chosen soundscape, classical and haunting rock, is the hallmark of many an astounding, thoughtful science fiction film (2001, A Clockwork Orange, The Fountain). Children’s artistic exterior should not eclipse its so, so vital story, sentiment, sadness and ultimately, optimism. We could be creating Children’s recognizable future-world with our present carelessness. Their dead, polluted planet is not so alien, yet hope breathes anew even in such desolation, a moral we should cling to. The final quarter of 2006 has been good for thought-provoking science fiction. Both The Fountain and Children of Men make ambitious statements through the language of a genre whose intellect often goes unappreciated. I wish Children of Men had come out earlier. I had a spot on my top 10 list reserved for just such a rare example of smart, sharp filmmaking.
Satisfy Your Inner Idealist
Freedom Writers
(PG-13)
originally published January 10, 2007
Hilary Swank
January has always been the month movies go to die (followed closely by February and September). In the first weekend of wide releases since 2007’s ball dropped, this month (heck, this year) is looking bleaker than most. I’ve already got three films (Code Name: The Cleaner, Thr3e, and Happily N’Ever After) shortlisted for the year’s worst. Bucking the trend - several, actually - is Freedom Writers, based on the true story of Erin Gruwell and the students of room 203 at Wilson High School. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit to being a teacher of freshmen who views all movies of Freedom Writers’ ilk with jaded wariness. The formula of these classroom dramas never changes and tasted bitter even before I entered the profession. Now, with personal experience, further clouding my critical judgment, I find these films fail to capture the true relationship between a teacher and her (or his) charges. Shockingly then, I left Freedom Writers with, if not a lump in my throat, a cathartically satisfied inner idealist.
As a first-year teacher thrown into the lion’s den of the hungriest maneaters, Gruwell (Hilary Swank) - Ms. G to her kids - enters a hellish environment that makes my own appear divine. Gruwell’s roll is populated with gang bangers, recent parolees, and any other teen deemed “unteachable” by a system not willing to adapt. The unbreakable Gruwell, the borders of her optimism clearly overrun by naïveté’s invaders, is left to fight distrustful students (including R&B singer Mario, Hunter Parrish of “Weeds,” and April Lee Hernandez), unwilling administrators and colleagues (Imelda Staunton and John Benjamin Hickey), and a selfish husband (Patrick “McDreamy” Dempsey). She takes on two extra jobs to pay for books her school has but will not distribute and field trips for which her school will not pay. The iron-jawed Swank is a perfect hire for the small but steely Gruwell. The two-time Oscar winner almost overplays the young teacher’s innocence in her laughably painful first interactions with both colleagues and students. But Gruwell’s growth as a teacher is equally significant to the film as the transformation of her students, whose unformulaic depth is where writer-director Richard LaGravenese (an Oscar nominee for his Fisher King script) succeeds and films like Take the Lead fail. While LaGravenese knows he is constricted by the “inspirational teacher” genre, he doesn’t neglect the kids, whose words and dreams make up the majority of the book upon which his script is based. The imitative Freedom Writers may not deserve an A, but the earnestness of its hard work certainly justifies a B.
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