Out & About
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Two films coming out this week take radically different routes to the same message: Children are essential to the universe.
“Children of Men” is set in the year 2027 in a bombed-out London that has no future: Women have been infertile for 18 years. The only hope is to bring a a child into the world, which becomes the mission of the characters played by Julianne Moore and Clive Owens.
At the Cinema Society and GQ screening Tuesday at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, no children were present. But guests found it hard to get their minds off them.
“I can’t wait to be a father, and after seeing this film, I better hurry up,” the actor Josh Hartnett said during the party at the SoHo Grand’s penthouse after the screening.
“The next time I hear a crying baby on the subway, I’m going to smile,” writer and composer David Cornue, whose wife, Milena Govich, is an actress on “Law & Order,” said.
“Children? I want to get on it right away,” actress Jane Krakowski said.
Guests included the film’s director, Alfonso Cuaron, and the film’s producers, Hilary Shor and Eric Newman. “It’s a totally bizarre concept, the idea of a world without children,” Mr. Owens, who is the father of two girls, said. “Kids are our hope, and that’s what this film is about.”
Meanwhile, at the premiere of “Night at the Museum” at the American Museum of Natural History, children far outnumbered adults, to see a movie that imagines a museum without kids. The central character, played by Ben Stiller, is a night watchman who agitates some of the exhibits, such as a tyrannosaurus rex, to life. Guess who can restore order?
To keep the museum safe the night of the premiere, 244 children and adults slept over in the Hall of Ocean Life. Late in the night, they patrolled the museum, finding no evidence of live exhibits.
Granted, the stakes are dramatically different in each film. So are the ambitions of the filmmakers, not to mention the intended audiences. But both films offer uplifting messages about what really matters: children are a source of imagination and strength.
