Children of Men: A-

Regretably, I couldn't see this one before year's end, thus the reason it never made it into my "10 Best Movies of 2006" list.

But it would have.

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The poet Samuel Coleridge once wrote "hope without an object draws nectar in a sieve". As I watched Alfonso Cuaron's latest work of modern movie magic I was assailed with that line over and over (perhaps because it has such eerie resonance with the film). The year is 2027 and in war battered Britain no one has hope. Women have stopped making babies for nearly 18 years and all of humanity is slowly succumbing to the likes of mass terrorism and chaos. Of course the alternative, that being the almost fascist oppression of the British government and military, isn't much better. Then it all changes...in the span of one heartbeat.

Theodore Faron (Clive Owen) labors away at the Ministry of Energy, wasting his later years smoking pot with his friend Jasper (Micheal Caine, a hoot in Jesus hair) and not exactly ruminating on what is basically the end of all civilization. Soon enough though Julian Taylor (Juilanne Moore sizzling with chilly intelligence), his ex-lover and poweful rebel leader, has kidnapped and bribed him into getting a "fugee" across the borders to meet the underground organization "The Human Project" (reminding me of Lemony Snicket's equally shadowy and omnipotent VFD). He discovers though that this fugee, a woman named Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), is pregnant. She is the first pregnant woman in nearly two decades. And soon her secret is out meaning everyone wants her and no one is willing to let her go.

Alfonso Cuaron, who directed and co-wrote the movie (which is adapted from a P.D. James' novel of the same title), has brought to life a dazzling dystopian thriller that will grab you and never let you go. Namely because his vision of a world none to far away is never so cold and futuristic as to suspend belief. Every detail reaks of misery and suffering boiling just beneath the surface and every camera shot evokes a world so like our own it has the power to take your breath away. By employing the split-second immediacy of movies like War of the Worlds and Saving Private Ryan, Cuaron has crafted an explosion of storytelling that is equal parts adrenaline and intellect. Though the ending, which doesn't really end anything, nagged at my brain, his vision still haunts me and the strength of his talent left me glued to my seat.