I saw it a couple days ago and liked it, but didn't love it. The lefty political overtones were too irritating -- the Homeland Security sign over the entrance to the immigrant ghetto/prison for instance -- and I thought the performances by the supporting cast were weak, especially, and unfortunately, since they were central characters, the chubby midwife lady and the pregnant girl (I forget their names). But gosh, what a beautiful portrayal of distopian raggediness. I'm a fellow fan of dark movies and this one scratches that itch brilliantly. The realism is incredible. Incredible attention to detail. Speaking of dark movies, if you liked Children of Men, you'd probably also like Pan's Labyrinth. Saw it yesterday evening. Whew, it's good stuff -- dark, poignant, realistic, and beautifully acted all around.
I was disappointed too that the film did not more closely follow the book, which had themes I found to be more interesting and universal. I find it interesting that the film took the infertility problem from men to women--seems kind of misogynistic to me (in the parlance of the film's politics) but I guess that comes from the novel being written by a women and the screenplay by a man.
I found the novel's decline in violence to be far more believable than the chaotic police state in the film. I also found it odd that so many refugees were living in England but so few of them seemed to be able to communicate in English. They were jabbering away to the guards in the native languages like they expected to be understood.
I missed the more personal social explorations that the book took with women pretending dolls and dogs were the children and attempting to have the dogs baptized. It was implied in the film that dogs were filling the role of children to the refugees, but the religious aspect was not touched on.
I also did not understand the shift away from the main character being in the ivory tower of academia to one where he is a former radical who seems to have "sold out" and become an office drone.
And they totally missed James's message about the pregnancy by making an immigrant the pregnant woman and not Julian. The whole reason in the novel that Julian slipped through the fertility tests was because she was deformed and it never crossed the minds of those in charge that she or anyone else with health issues (like the father of the baby who was epileptic) ought to be tested.
They basically sold out a really good story for giving a Cindy Sheehan type message that will not be relevant in another twenty years. The novel will continue to be appreciated long after the film has been relegated to the vaults.