FauxNixon

This is a pretty original concept that is effectively put on-screen. In the very near future, this movie shows an in-progress apocalypse in which all of the world except the United Kingdom has fallen because women are no longer able to get pregnant. It’s refreshing that the film-makers make no effort whatsoever to explain why women can no longer have babies as it just forces the viewer to accept it as a possibility and just watch.

The point is that for almost two decades there have been no new births and we come to view this in the midst of the aftermath of the death of the world’s youngest person. Theo (Clive Owen) is disillusioned and waiting in a coffee shop when the news of this death appear on news channels. Theo doesn’t care very much and leaves the shop, which is moments later destroyed by an explosion. The government blames terrorists and immigrants, the revolutionaries blame the government, all of the groups involved find the news of a woman who has somehow become pregnant very recently to their political advantage. It is the story of this woman’s escort out of the United Kingdom by Theo which makes up the bulk of this thriller, but what may be most interesting is the incredible plausibility of the outcome of this event upon society. In such a world the government issues rations of antidepressants and makes suicide kits freely available for those wanting to end things. For those who do not the borders of the country are essentially shut and those who try to immigrate are imprisoned, tortured and killed with the kind of cold-blooded indifference which is eerily believable. Michael Caine and Julianne Moore fill out the cast and make this a very effective, realistic and original thriller.