Featured Image Credit: Universal Pictures
Topics: TV and Film, London
Jess Battison
Film fans are urging people to watch a nearly 20-year-old film that becomes ‘more relevant every year.’
The dystopian thriller was recommended on an X thread of ‘films that flopped at the box office but are actually great.’
Released in 2006, it is described of having ‘underperformed’ with a budget of $76 million (£56 million) but grossing roughly a mere $70 million (£52 million) worldwide.
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However, despite this lack of clear marketing and box office flopping, the film is absolutely raved about by fans, with a whopping 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer, 85 percent on the Popcornmeter and a number of awards to its name.
Fans are probably well aware by this point of just what film I’m on about here: Children of Men, of course.
Directed and co-written by Alfonso Cuarón, its based on the 1992 novel of the same name.
And rather eerily, as the fans suggest with its relevance, the thriller is set in 2027, which really isn’t that far away now.
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Children of Men has an impressive cast with the likes of Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Pam Ferris and Charlie Hunman.
The film is set during a time when humanity has lost the ability to produce, with Owen playing civil servant Theo Faron, who tries to help the pregnant refugee Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey).
Mankind is threatened with extinction as the unlikely champion fights for the survival of Earth’s population. “He must face down his own demons and protect the planet’s last remaining hope from danger,” the synopsis reads.
With Britain sitting as the only remaining ‘civilised society’ in the world, the film plays out in dystopian London, Theo tries to help transport the miraculously pregnant Kee to a sanctuary at sea.
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And fans and critics absolutely love it, with the Rotten Tomatoes’ consensus reading: “Children of Men works on every level: as a violent chase thriller, a fantastical cautionary tale, and a sophisticated human drama about societies struggling to live.”
On X, one fan wrote: “Children of Men (2006) may have flopped at the box office, but time has revealed it as a sci-fi masterpiece. Haunting, urgent, and more relevant with every passing year.”
Another wrote on Rotten Tomatoes: “Under the stunning direction of Alfonso Cuaron, Children of Men is a beautifully shot (fantastic one-take action sequences), incredibly acted and layered thriller that is packed with emotional depth and continuous suspense. There were a couple of elements that could have been handled with a little bit more flair, but all in all this was a brilliant and hugely compelling film.”
Another echoed: “Alfonso Cuaron's dystopian vision of a world where women have stopped getting pregnant, and society is falling into despair in the absence of hope for the future, has lost none of its power from its original release - and is perhaps rightly now regarded as one of the best films of its era.”
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Children of Men is available to stream on NOW and for rent on the likes of Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.