When I heard a movie had been made of The Children of Men, and that it was getting good reviews, I decided to re-read the novel. I remembered almost nothing about it other than the basic premise: in 1995, the human race loses its ability to reproduce. In 2021, it must come to grips with its imminent extinction — will the light of humanity go out with a bang, or a whimper?
This novel was a startling departure for P. D. James, well known as the author of the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries. It is reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian speculative novels, and it also reminds me of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Despite long stretches of exposition, a thin plot, and heavy-handed Christ imagery, The Children of Men is perhaps even more fascinating 15 years after its original publication as a vision of the very near future.
The novel provides thought-provoking reflections on population trends, immigration, crime, and religious devotion and fanaticism; will the movie update the plot with concerns and crises that were barely on the horizon in 1992: global warming, mass extinction of non-human species, terrorism, imperialism? I’m eager to see it and find out.
Chances are the movie will lose a lot of what you remember from the book (”Weak Plot”, “Christian Sermonizing,” etc).
All that’s really needed is that one line summary you quoted as a jumping off point. Sometimes that’s all a film production company wants when it buys the film rights to a book- the concept and the fact that they can tie it to something that’s been published (the last being that something which is published becomes a worthy project and more easy to get financed because it’s been validated by another industry- publishing).
In any event it sounds interesting, so I will be keeping an eye out for it when it makes dvd.
So true. The movie might barely resemble the book. I was a little harsh on the book — I really did like it, and as a jumping off point, it could hardly be more relevant — but I’ve seen enough movies to know that the adaptation can occasionally be superior to the original.
I saw the movie and found it deeply disturbing (even weeks after I found myself thinking about it), and I was so surprised when I discovered it was adapted from a P.D.James book! I’ll read it if I can find it, thanks for the tip.
Apparently it’s been re-issued, with Clive Owens on the cover. I’m not crazy about movie star covers myself.
I had another thought about the book/movie this morning: The book came out pre-cell phone, pre-Internet, pre-email. I wonder how they handle that in the movie?