Children of Men

In the not-too-distant-future of 2027, the human race borders on extinction. A child hasn't been born in 18 years due to a mysterious infertility plague that swept the globe. Great Britain is now a police state where immigrants are locked up and deported (or done away with), but many people manage to continue their day-to-day lives—or commit suicide with help from a new pharmaceutical tablet. Working stiff Theo (Clive Owens) stays sane by visiting his pothead pal, Jasper (Michael Caine). But he's jolted into sudden action and out of complacency when his ex, Julian (Julianne Moore), begs a favor: to help get a young black girl, Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), out of the country to the safety of a possibly fictitious, utopian-minded think tank dubbed The Human Project. Why Kee? Because she's pregnant, and with her unborn child she carries the possible future of humanity. However, Theo finds this a difficult challenge with violence, and duplicitous gangs determined to kill him and keep Kee for their own motives, on every side.

Ignoring logic flaws, and an admittedly vague motivation for the bad guys' plight to keep Kee away from The Human Project (they don't want a utopian future?), this is a pretty entertaining dystopian future thriller. In adapting P. D. James' novel of the same name, director Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu Mama Tambien) stages some dynamic—and loud—chase scenes and visceral action with help from astounding and seamless special effects. With its grim, grey, sickly images of London, Danny Boyle's even grittier 28 Days Later is, at times, called to mind. There are a few exciting twists and turns as well, so it's best you not read too many reviews lest someone open their gob too wide. There's a bit of dark humor scattered about, including a series of TV ads for that euthanasia tablet mentioned earlier, and clever bits of futuristic detail and information.

We love Moore always, and Owens is pretty charismatic, likable and believable as a guy forced into action (one can see how rumors that he was considered as James Bond were started by fans). Caine provides some lightness, while Queer as Folk's Charlie Hunnam and Kinky Boots' Chiwetel Ejiofor bring shadowy menace and testosterone as Kee's determined and dangerous protectors. And 19-year-old Ashitey is both assured and, by virtue of her character's predicament, vulnerable. Just like humanity itself. —Lawrence Ferber

Notes on a Scandal

One of the great things about British cinema—Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Always aside—is its refreshing lack of sentimentality and cheap theatrics. Instead of manipulating audiences with emotionally overwrought music scores and contrived plot devices, British films tend to simply present a series of events and leave the audience to draw their own conclusions.

Richard Eyre’s Notes on a Scandal is but one example of this sort of superior kind of filmmaking, and it’s a damn good one at that. Casting Cate Blanchett as a married school teacher who becomes sexually involved with a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson), the film thankfully avoids moralizing and sermonizing on the inappropriateness of such an affair by instead focusing on a much different dramatic plot: that of the dangerous obsession that fellow teacher Barbara (Judi Dench) seems to have developed for Blanchett’s Sheba. A spinsterish grouch with a checkered past, Barbara sets her sights on the younger woman, and—after discovering Sheba’s transgression—uses the knowledge of the affair to her advantage, thus initiating a twisted “seduction” that threatens to destroy both their lives.

It’s all very melodramatic in theory, but director Eyre avoids histrionics at every turn, directing from Patrick Marber’s (Closer) straight-forward adaptation of Zoe Heller’s novel with terse precision. His choice to eschew cheap stunts in favor of a more authentic approach—and Philip Glass’ effective, suspenseful score—serve the film’s plot twists well, though the strong performances are the movie’s greatest assets. Playing against type, Blanchett radiates an unhinged sensuality and reckless abandon that gives her a chance to spread her wings, but it’s Dench’s Oscar-worthy turn that truly impresses. Making Barbara seem both dangerously freakish and sympathetic, she carries this modest but enthralling suspense yarn along on her stern shoulders in a performance that is nothing short of mesmerizing. —Ken Knox

Pan’s Labyrinth

Since impressing many with his well received 1993 vampire flick Cronos, Mexican director Guillermo del Toro has turned out a series of films that has been by turns inventive (Mimic), haunting (The Devil’s Backbone), shameless (Blade II), and just plain silly (Hellboy). Whatever his movies’ faults, del Toro has injected each one of them with the same atmospheric mood and tone, weaving stories more out of an emphasis on character than on contrived plot twists. And in his latest, the bizarrely compelling Pan’s Labyrinth, the director has finally begun to live up to his potential.

Set against the post-war repression caused by the Spanish Civil War, the movie spins the fantastical tale of a young girl named Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), who travels with her pregnant and ailing mother (Ariadna Gil) to their new home at the well-guarded, dreary estate of fascist army captain Vidal (Sergi López), who has taken Ofelia’s mother as his bride. When a dragonfly pays a visit to Ofelia in the middle of the night, Ofelia follows it into the woods, where she is led into a mysterious labyrinth. There, she meets a shifty, inscrutable Faun (Doug Jones), who tells Ofelia that she is a princess that must complete three tasks before she is granted immortality. From then on, the labyrinth and its cast of magical, sometimes dangerous creatures becomes her (real? imagined?) escape from her increasingly dreary life.

Inventive and beautifully shot, Pan’s Labyrinth is not your usual fairy tale. Indeed, considering the amount of graphic violence and gore, parents would be ill advised to let their kids watch this one. However, adults who grew up on the Brothers Grimm will love its detours into the fantastical, which are expertly woven into the film’s “real” plot. While Javier Navarrete’s simple but haunting score and Guillermo Navarro’s lush cinematography complement the depressed overtones—and young Baquero’s splendid performance provides a much-needed dose of innocence to temper the darker moments—it is del Toro’s unique and imaginative vision of a world where anything is possible that is the true star of this brilliant cinematic treasure. —K.K.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Based on the cult novel Das Parfum, Tom Tykwer’s Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is bizarre and compelling, lush and disturbing, a sensuous myth on the power of scent and the human desire to confine its essence.

Without indulging too much plot, the story trails Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), an orphaned boy born with prodigious olfactory senses in the Paris fish markets of the 1800s. Perfume is the picaresque journey of Grenouille’s obsession to distill a legendary scent—one with the power to transform mankind. His ultimate aroma requires the refinement of young female flesh; he has a murderous taste for France’s ginger-haired maidens.

For its first hour, the film is a Dickensian romp. Tykwer creates a palpable squalor in the fish markets and tanning factories where Grenouille works prior to becoming the apprentice to Baldini (Dustin Hoffman), a master perfumer past his prime. Grenouille implores Baldini to teach him how to “capture” scent, not just create it. Tykwer actually visualizes aroma when Baldini, after banishing his young protégé, removes the stopper from a perfume bottle to intake Grenouille’s first confection. The camera circles Hoffman in a grungy lab and, while turning, replaces the drab surroundings with a garden of aromas—jasmine, sage, lavender—and the soft kiss of a red-haired woman, returning full stop to the perfumer in his lair, a changed man. Hoffman’s nose has waited all its life for this role.

Perfume darkens as it lengthens, and grows harrowing. Though it doesn’t take root as most myths do —there doesn’t seem to be any real-life antecedent to latch onto—it’s still haunting. The film’s too long— the hunt for Grenouille in the second half goes on—yet Tykwer’s imagination never lags. Grenouille’s tragedy is that scent vanishes—the essence captured can only be fleeting. What Tykwer catches with Perfume may linger forever in the cinematic memory. —Dan Loughry