On Children of men

Disjointed thoughts ahead! Another week in the Movie/reading material swap! The movie this week was 2006's Children of Men. Having just finished watching the season finale of The Last Of Us, I saw many paralells. However, this movie was thought provoking in its own right.

The movie kept me engaged the entire time! That is not something that most films manage to do. I think the graying of the workforce was -just- salient enoguh in my mind that this movie tapped into it. The worldbuilding for this movie starts at 60 and never really stops. I can see this being tiring for some folks, but I loved it. It kept me engaged. Even silly things like called refugees 'fugees' felt normal because it was normal in-world. The emphasis on fertility and just how much of a shock it was to the world was emphasised with small things littered throughout the set-design- billboards with 'Avoiding Fertility Tests is a crime!'.

The graying of the workforce is a real issue and this movie takes it to the extreme (as media ought to do). Governments are already panicking that younger people are not having kids at the rate needed to replenish the workforce. Of course that's a much larger issue that I'm not qualified to talk on. But that definitely made it easier for me to entertain the possibility of the film's premise.

I was really surprised at how easily Jasper became a memorable character. He did not have a lot of lines, but wow they were nuclear. I laughed a little when he said something along the lines of Anti-Depressants and suicide pills in a kit, but weed is still illegal. Even in a dystopian hellscape, these bizarre things existed. I think the movie goes out of its way to hammer that point in. There still exists this severe classist separation - even at the brink of extinction.

The girl that he is transporting to the 'miracle boat' feels very much like Ellie from The Last Of US. And I get that her story continues beyond the ending of the movie. But, the movie ending when the MC dies left a small hole in my heart. I did not get the closure I wanted. We don't even know if that boat...is -the- boat.

The ursurping / bandit/gang fighting that takes Julian was insane. I did not see it coming. Yeesh.