At least that's my impression from 1984, Brazil, V for Vendetta and now this.

Of course tragedy in sci-fi works very well since, given what I think about human nature, we are more likely to wind up in a dystopia. Here, in case you don't know, the human race has been unable to reproduce for eighteen years and everything has gone to hell in a hand basket. I suppose the best evidence for that is that everyone seems to be trying to get in to England. ;-)

Theo Faron (Clive Owen), a mid level bureaucrat, is approached by Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore) his ex-wife and partner from his activist days. She asks him to help sneak a young pregnant woman out of the country. She's a "fugee", an illegal immigrant, and as such is in a great deal of danger. It seems that no one in power would want the first baby born in almost two decades to be non-English. If they can get her to the coast there will be a boat waiting from the Human Project, an organization trying to save the world. It might also quite possibly be an urban myth. What follows is a whole lot of pain, paranoia, and a surprising amount of gunfire for something that isn't an action movie. I won't give away any details since it's fairly new to DVD and you should go in as fresh as possible.

Like any good sci-fi it has a lot going on politically. The idea of locking England down as the rest of the world fell apart is "pulled from today's headlines". That's especially true as an American watching this. I could see this sort of thing happening here given the wall project going on between here and Mexico. The shots of "fugees" in cages reminded me as much of the Japanese internment camps and Gitmo as they did the Nazi prison camps. It wouldn't take much to push us over this sort of edge, if we aren't going that way already.

There's also a very strong spiritual element. The link to Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt to escape Herod popped out to me. Kee, the hope for humanity, even has the line "There's no father. I'm a virgin. Nah! Be great, though, wouldn't it?". And the first time we see her is in a stable. Unlike Mary though she's as tainted as everyone else in this grimy place. There's also quote a bit going on in the background. The reaction of many to the disaster is to blame God, some groups engaging in self-immolation in order to appease the Almighty. Of course, that's a natural enough reaction to something this apocalyptic.

This movie earned every award that it received (mostly for cinematography) and probably a few that it didn't. The acting was all fantastic and the writing top notch. My favorite character had to be Jasper Palmer played by Michael Caine. An old friend of Theo's, he provides a touch of brightness to the film. The subplot involving him, his catatonic wife, and assisted suicide though brief, was powerful. And it says a lot about Caine's ability (as if there were any doubt) that Jasper doesn't become a cartoon.

So, what're you waiting for? Go rent this now!