The rhetoric of ingraining Britons with the idea that “only Britain soldiers on” while “the whole world has collapsed” seems only too relevant. Perhaps even more than it did fifteen years ago when Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men first came out. Yet, just like in 28 Days Later, it’s all a lie to keep the Brits going and prevent them from abandoning the island. They’re instead hit over the head with the message that, for as hopeless as it is there, it’s even bleaker on the outside (difficult to fathom, yes). But that isn’t the only repeated propaganda that squawks at the general public from day to day.
“The world was stunned today by the death of Diego Ricardo, the youngest person on the planet,” goes the first audible dialogue in the movie. As a child of the last batch of babies born in 2009, “Baby Diego” (his forever nickname) dying represents, in many ways, the final blow to any hope Britain—and the rest of the globe—had for the future. Or at least of seeing any subsequent generations live to see it. Theo Faron (Clive Owen), however, seems to be the lone person watching the news report who doesn’t look all that moved. After all, he lost hope a long time ago. Right before the great infertility burst of ’09—for his son, Dylan, died in ’08. As Theo’s last remaining friend, Jasper Palmer (Michael Caine), tells it, “In 2008, along came the flu pandemic and Dylan was gone.” One doesn’t need to mention the eerie and apropos cause of death pertaining to the present all too fittingly.
More than anything, it is the “small details” of the dystopian present (er, “future”) that make Children of Men so impactful. This includes the sight of refugees in cages at every turn, one such cage filled with illegal immigrants that now even extends to the “clean white ones”—zee Germans—that Britain might once have been far more open to “receiving.” But as of November 16, 2027 (the day of Diego’s death) and well before, no immigrant is a good immigrant, apparently (not that they ever were as far as most governments have been concerned, but now it’s devolved into an all-out Nazi approach to “handling” them). More bummed out by the sight of people getting emotional about some asshole kid whose only accomplishment was being the youngest person on Earth, Theo rings up Jasper and asks for a hangout session at his very remote abode. Driving toward the area where the Bexhill concentration camp (for all intents and purposes) is, Jasper and Theo see a bus filled with “fugees” driving by, whereupon Jasper remarks, “Poor fugees. After escaping the worst atrocities and finally making it to England, our government hunts them down like cockroaches.” Doesn’t sound so different from the present.
Nor does the difficulty of dating in post-apocalyptic times as Jasper jokes to Theo of his latest breakup, “Dating ain’t what it used to be, ay amigo?” As their car ride comes to an end, when Jasper asks Theo if he did anything for his birthday, he responds in a deadpan tone, “Nothing. Same as every other day. Woke up, felt like shit. Went to work, felt like shit.” Some things never change. But one element that has noticeably altered in this new version of society is the frequent advertising of how one can kill themselves with a magical little kit called Quietus (advertised on platforms like the BCC—which is just a play on the BBC logo). There are numerous other production design choices that make the hostile environment stand out, including a poster that reads: “Target Britain / Jobs for the Brits / Report Illegal Workers to the D.E.D.” That acronym standing for the Deportation and Exile Department. How would you like to work for them? Cheery indeed.
Other ominous government warnings that continue throughout are: “Avoiding fertility tests is a crime” and “Have your papers ready.” One supposes that’s what it will start to say soon everywhere with regard to having proof of vaccination. A briefly shown graffito as Theo rides the train to get picked up by Jasper reads in the same sort of iconic script as “The End is Extremely Fucking Nigh” in 28 Days Later: “Last One to Die Please Turn Out the Light.” It’s a clear reference to the pervasive encouragement of suicide with the “gentle aid” of Quietus.
Finding little to live for in his day-to-day, Theo is relatively nonplussed when he’s abducted by a “terrorist” organization called the Fishes. The ringleader of the group being his ex, Julian (Julianne Moore)—though in the book, she’s just a random woman. Another detail to note in the book versus movie variation is that Quietus as a brand for suicide assistance is just the word quietus in the book, a ritual the elderly are expected to partake of (sort of like in Midsommar) via a mass drowning at age sixty—the “cutoff” for living, if you will. One that certainly allows more leniency than the age limitation in Logan’s Run. But it isn’t just old people who want to end it all, for the most part, willingly—the youth doesn’t see any hope either. Hence, the sardonic statement about the last one to die being told to turn out the light.
The last ones to die, clearly, will be the rich, but it seems unlikely they would know how to do basic things like turn out their own light without any broke asses remaining. Theo’s cousin, Nigel (Danny Huston), a high-ranking government official (even if “only” for the Ministry of Arts), is one such affluent male who seems largely unbothered by the state of affairs. Visiting him in his palace, Theo is first greeted by Banksy’s “British Cops Kissing” in the background. At the table Nigel’s son, Alex (a pre-Gossip Girl Ed Westwick), plays his little game with a hand ostensibly attached to the screen but also detached—connected to it through a network of lightweight wires. He can’t be bothered to even touch the screen that engages him so fully—that’s the extent of how much humanity has given up on itself, on its own natural faculties and instincts. In this way, the last generation to live through their life cycle effectively represents the walking dead (and we all know this is how boomers view millennials and Gen Z: as “prisoners of the screen”).
In contrast, Theo represents the old school, complete with his analog accoutrements of death: cigarettes and alcohol. Yet he is still the Patron Saint of Hopelessness. Nothing can faze him—no amount of torture or random explosions in various establishments throughout London. In the face of other men trying to make him feel some sense of “urgency” about anything, Theo will simply reply, “Your breath stinks” or “You’ve got something in your teeth.” Glib and cutting digs to make the oppressor in his midst feel belittled. Which they often do. Theo, or Thelonious, as Julian calls him, is only galvanized into feeling anything like sentiment when Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey)—the woman Julian has asked Theo to help get transit papers for—shows him her stomach, so obviously a pregnant one. It is in this instant that he realizes his responsibility to get her to safety. It also seems more than calculated that a Black female refugee (a triple threat for incurring discrimination) should be the only human on the planet capable of delivering the ultimate form of hope: new life. Despite the white British supremacists (cough, cough Tories) telling everyone that the refugees are the useless scourges of humanity.
Faced with a new layer to his hero’s journey, the graffito that Theo saw before on that train will turn out to be prophetic both for himself and Jasper. For both men must risk their own life in order to perpetuate some chance of it continuing on at all for everyone else. Toward the end, there is a moment when Theo is walking through a dilapidated building as bombs go off and guns blaze amid “The Uprising.” With Kee in tow—who has just given birth to her child, a girl—the crowd suddenly ceases all clamoring when they hear the long-forgotten sound of a baby crying. The moment doesn’t last for long, as people are only briefly entranced by the novelty before more violence erupts. So much for giving a shit about the “miracle of life.” Theo, in the end, has to pass the torch to Kee’s spawn for being the person to turn out the proverbial light, in her new role as “last one to die.”
