Summary
When Theo enters Jasper’s house, he fears that Jasper and Janice are dead because they are completely motionless; however, it is revealed that they have just been doing drugs. They all sit down to a meal and Miriam explains what the Tomorrow is: a hospital ship disguised as a fishing boat that will take them to the headquarters of the Human Project in the Azores. They have an agreement to meet the Tomorrow when it stops in Bexhill in two days’ time.
Theo asks Kee about her baby, and wants to know who the father is. She at first pretends she is a virgin, but then laughs and says she is not sure which man it was. She describes being uncertain during the beginning of her pregnancy, having never seen nor talked about pregnant women before. But everything changed when she felt the baby kick for the first time, and she knew it was alive and she felt alive, too. All during this conversation, she is braiding Janice’s hair.
Jasper comes up with a solution for getting them into Bexhill: they will get themselves arrested by a border guard who Jasper sells drugs to and who has agreed to sneak them into the refugee camp. In the next scene, Theo pours himself a drink and listens in on a conversation between the others in the living room. Kee spots a photograph of Julian and Theo with their baby, and asks Jasper about it. Jasper talks about Dylan, their baby, and how wonderful he was when he was alive and how tragic it was when he died of the flu pandemic. He says Theo’s faith that things would be better lost out to the chance horror of losing Dylan, which is what convinced Theo that it is not worth the effort to fight.
In the middle of the night, Jasper’s alarm rings and they spot some of the Fishes breaking in, attempting to find them. Theo, Miriam, and Kee make to leave, waiting for Jasper to follow, but he only gives them instructions on where to meet Syd the border guard and says he will not go with them. He claims he needs to stall the Fishes. He tells Theo to tell Syd that he is a fascist pig—it is some kind of code phrase. Theo, Miriam, and Kee drive off and Jasper and Janice sit and wait, prepared for the worst. There is a touching scene where Jasper sits across from Janice in her wheelchair and reaches out to touch her face as she sits motionless.
Theo and Miriam pull the car up to the hill overlooking the house and get out to watch what happens to Jasper as the Fishes arrive. The Fishes search the house and come up with evidence that reveals that Theo and his group have headed to Bexhill. When Jasper refuses to give them further information, they shoot and kill him while Theo watches in agony from the hill, and angrily lashes out at Miriam when she apologizes but reminds him it is for the greater good.
They drive to an abandoned school with walls full of old children’s paintings. The hallways are eerily empty, save for a deer that has somehow gotten into the building and knocked things over. Theo and Miriam sit in an empty classroom and talk while Kee swings on a swing outside. Miriam tells him about her life before the infertility crisis. She was a midwife, and suddenly all her patients began to miscarry their pregnancies. As this continued to happen, her business stopped—there were no more pregnancies. She talks about how strange it is to live in a world without the voices of children. She says “I was there at the end,” and Theo reminds her that she will now be there at the beginning.
There is a siren outside and an officer appears. Theo, hoping that it is Syd, follows Jasper’s instructions and tells him that he is a fascist pig. The officer pretends to prepare to strike him, but then starts to laugh and reveals that he is Syd. He speaks in third person. Syd takes them in his vehicle and drives them towards Bexhill.
Analysis
As discussed in the previous section, Kee’s pregnancy shares many symbolic ties to the Biblical Virgin Mary. In this part of the film, Kee acknowledges this connection herself, joking that her pregnancy is an immaculate conception just like Mary’s. Through this joke, she simultaneously connects herself and distances herself from the Bible. By turning it into something lighthearted, she insinuates that in their world today, things are far more complex than these Biblical stories describe.
Jasper plays an important role in this film as a mentor and father figure to Theo. Though there is nothing to suggest that they are related by blood, Jasper is much more than a dealer to Theo. He has stepped up as a necessary support system in the wake of Theo’s son’s death and his divorce from Julian, a further example of this film’s complicated theme of parenthood and its many different forms in a world where people are no longer able to parent biological children. This is why Jasper’s death hits Theo so hard; not only was Jasper a parental figure in Theo’s life, but even more so, Theo feels responsible for causing the death of one of the few people in his world he still feels close to.
The Fishes’ ambush and attack on Jasper and Janice’s house completely overturns the previous allegiances audiences were led to accept. When Theo took the Fishes’ job and acquired transit papers, it seemed as if the Fishes were the good guys, fighting for equal rights for the fugees, while the oppressive government was the bad guy. Now, though, it is clear that the Fishes are not so different from the government—they will similarly stop at nothing to achieve their political goals, and are not beyond killing and destroying to do so. Theo, Miriam, and Kee must evade both of these unsavory groups of people in order to get Kee to the Tomorrow, making the task of reaching the coast all the more difficult.
As a director, Alfonso Cuarón is extremely conscientious about setting, particularly for his most important scenes. The abandoned school that Miriam and Theo discuss the past in is a chilling reminder of the infertility crisis that has devastated humanity for the last twenty years. A school is meant to be a lively, full, happy place, and to see one abandoned in this way is unsettling though apt for a dystopian film setting. Conversely, though, the image of Kee swinging on the swing set outside is a beacon of hope. She appears childlike and innocent in this moment because within her she carries a child, hope for the future of humanity and the eventual revitalization of abandoned schools like this one.
Up until this point, the audience has known little about Miriam’s character, other than that she clearly has Kee’s best interests in mind and wants to protect her at all costs. This conversation reveals her backstory, adding a necessary dimension to Miriam. She is a midwife, who previously devoted her life’s work to delivering babies and assisting new mothers. As the infertility crisis struck, she correctly points out that she was there at the end, watching her career fade as births trickled away. But as Theo points out, by helping Kee reach the Human Project and receive the care she needs, she is also ensuring that she has a place in this new beginning. The idea of beginnings and endings is especially relevant in a film concerned with aging and infertility.
