Children of Men offers a masterclass in show, don’t tell world-building, depicting a society in the advanced stages of a long-burn collapse after it has lost its future. Uniquely, rather than relying on exposition, the film forces you to observe the degradation of infrastructure and the normalisation of deviance in the background: the cages on the streets, the militarised borders, and the quiet despair of a population with no long-termism left. It delivers a haunting exploration of how quickly the social contract dissolves when the dream of a better future is lost.
