DVD review (Region 2)
Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón
Starring: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor

It’s 2027 and an unexplained phenomenon has caused worldwide infertility. As the human race stares extinction in the face and society falls apart, a lone woman offers a glimmer of hope...

This film version of a novel by P.D. James takes its cue from various dystopian masterpieces, especially George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four for its sense of oppressive paranoia and detailed vision of an alternative reality, which could so easily happen if we make a few missteps. This is the best kind of science fiction; not far flung whimsy but a speculative story rooted in an invented but recognisable universe.

Where Blade Runner showed a festering Los Angeles, Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón (Y Tu Mamá También and the third Harry Potter) shows us a decaying London where no regeneration has occurred to the buildings or population. Cuarón’s fresh eye on the UK does not present a pretty picture. The urban decay, enlivened only by animated posters on buses and newsstands (which generally spurt out propaganda), is terrifyingly feasible.

With so much at stake in the plot, the occasional moments of explosive violence hit with sledgehammer strength and are stunningly shot by hand-held camera, some in meticulous, real-time, single takes. Hollywood hacks should study every frame of this film to learn how to make exciting action sequences. Plaudits should also go to Clive Owen, whose solid central performance as Theodore lends the movie a world-weary humanity, and Michael Caine, lending great support as ageing hippy Jasper Palmer.

Something as good as this truly deserves the special DVD treatment, though for that we may have to wait until it hits Region 1 later in 2007. The only extra on this Region 2 release is a worthy but brief featurette. Ian Calcutt

VERDICT: 9/10
Alfonso Cuarón’s nerve-shredding film works equally well as high concept sci fi and as a devastatingly powerful thriller.