Children of Men: The Purest Christmas Movie
Updated: Feb 23, 2025
SPOILER WARNING!
If you want to watch a film that reaffirms the true meaning of Christmas, then I would highly recommend Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men (2006). Based on the novel by P. D. James, Children of Men is a dystopian nativity story where fertility has ceased, and humanity is on the verge of extinction, governments are falling apart, terrorism escalating, and oppressive detention and deportation is enforced on immigrants. No one has seen a new-born baby in 18 years, until Theo (Clive Owen) an apathetic former activist is recruited to help smuggle an African girl called Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) out of the country only to realise she is pregnant.
This Mary and Joseph like pair must survive deadly battlegrounds and apocalyptic zones to keep the mother and baby safe. In the same way Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, the hope for all humanity, Children of Men echoes that profound emotional moment with the arrival of a new salvation and restoration for the world during its darkest hour. Children of Men is not festive or even set at Christmas but thematically has the purest Christmas narrative, stripped away are all cosey, commercial style of the any hallmark movie for a singularly dark, realist story of hope. Made in 2006, it is frightening how much our world is beginning to look like the one this film created.
There is one powerful sequence when Theo, Kee, and the baby are caught in a crossfire, and a ceasefire is called when the soldiers hear the cries of this baby for the first time, generating a momentary silence in the battle. To me there is something real and spiritual about this scene that reminds me of the way we should understand what Jesus coming into this world really feels like.
Available to watch on Amazon Prime.
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