However, I think the movie works on the level of metaphor better than the level of realism.

You know what that statement means from a practical standpoint, right? "I want this movie to be true even though it's false." It's a movie. It didn't HAVE to be false. If you're making everything up, make it up so that it MATCHES. Yes - it's a metaphor. A pound-the-audience-over-the-head, wallow-in-your-inferiority metaphor, like CRASH or any other "oscar contender" which starts out with the premise "you know, people are assholes."

Thing is: if you're going to make people assholes, they have to act assholish in a way consistent with accepted human behavior or you have to explain why. Children of Men is full of characters that act like assholes because METAPHOR and then act like saints because METAPHOR.

It's the clumsiest, weakest, shittest writer's crutch there is. Write characters, not parables.

I think the answer is his memory of begin a father. He has a paternal intuition that kicks in.

Do you once see him to do anything to save the baby? Everything Theo does he does because someone else makes him do it.

What did you think of the cinematography?

Three of my friends are cinematographers. I've sat through so many countless "beautiful" films in which fuckall happens that I've actually started to resent cinematography. You know what's easy? Long fucking shots. You know what's also easy? Frames full of ruin. You know what Children of Men is? Long shots full of ruin. You know what's hard? storytelling.

Friend of mine had a project set up at Disney. McG was slated to direct it. My friend came over to talk to McG while McG was finishing up Terminator:Salvation. McG made him watch little snippets of it and said "What do you think? Doesn't it look awesome!??!??!??"

My friend said "of course it looks awesome, you spent $200 million on it. How's the story?"

My friend got kicked off the project, even though he'd been nursing it for eight years.