Considering we are in an election year right now when Alex Garland’s Civil War was announced to be coming out, there was immediate wild speculation as to what this dystopian action feature would have to say about the state of America. From many states having seceded from the union to two unlikely states like California and Texas joining forces, there were so many questions as to how we got here within the movie. As it turns out, Alex Garland answered them in considerably different ways than any of us could have expected.
Telling a story in the foreground of a country torn apart by war, the film follows two photojournalists, Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and Joel (Wagner Moura), who decide to venture across the country to the heart of the conflict in Washington D.C. to interview and photograph the dictatorial president (Nick Offerman), who is currently serving his third term as the country’s leader. They also end up bringing along a veteran of the profession, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who is headed to Charlottesville to cover the Western Forces, who are preparing to make their stand against the United States government, as well as Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), an aspiring photojournalist who idolizes Lee. Along the way, they encounter the ways in which many different areas of the United States are handling the civil war, each one more horrific and disturbing than the last.
This film was not what I, or many other people, thought it would be for a number of reasons. First of all, this is a road trip film, but it is a road trip story in the way that Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is, which is to say that it is more of an odyssey “upriver” as these characters near their final destination, resulting in a finale that is beautifully filmed but horrific. The other main aspect of the film is its stance on the politics at hand, which is to say it has none. Garland is not interested in taking a side, but rather showing what may happen if our country continues on the divided path we are on now. He is also not interested in holding the hand of the audience to explain why this conflict began, or why two states as seemingly different as California and Texas are suddenly allies in the heat of battle. The film drops you in with no warning and hurdles you forward into a journey that is as riveting as it is sickening. In keeping with the apolitical stance, Garland’s decision to make photojournalists the lead characters is a shrewd move on his part, as the job of a photojournalist, as said by the characters themselves, is “to have no opinion and take the pictures.” We see these characters reckon with this ideology over the course of the film, as some characters seemingly reawaken their shock and moral compass, while others plunge deeper into the fog of war, choosing not to sacrifice their own feelings in order to achieve the perfect photograph.
This film is actually a character study more than anything else, and it is a terrific one at that. Dunst gives an excellent performance as Lee, a former war photographer who has seen everything and has been absolutely worn down by it all, and yet cracks in her rough facade begin to show when she begins mentoring Jessie, who in turn becomes hardened in her quest to stake her own claim in this field. Spaeny, who plays Jessie further cements her rising star status here, as a young woman whose ambition grows to surprising degrees over the course of the film, culminating in a final moment that I find to be remarkable in both its darkness as well as its honesty. Moura does wonderful work here as well, as he balances his no-nonsense journalist persona with his real personality, which is revealed to be remarkably easygoing and friendly. As a final note on the acting, there is one sequence involving a known actor who is seen in the trailer, but uncredited in the final film. I do not want to reveal who it is, but I will say that his performance was one of the scariest things I have seen in a very long time.
There has also been much discussion about Alex Garland’s comments following the film’s release, saying that he does not want to direct again and was remarkably burnt out after working on the film. I understand the emotion, as this was surely a very difficult film to put together, but I really hope that it is not true. Cashing in the critical acclaim he has received from films like Ex Machina and Annihilation, this film sees Garland take on his biggest canvas yet, and it pays off in remarkable fashion. He has an incredible eye for shooting these big setpieces, using many long takes, as well as a wide scope to get all of the action on camera that he can. In addition to that, he, as well as Rob Hardy, his cinematographer, have a remarkable talent for making the most horrific things look beautiful, whether it be a forest fire that the journalists drive by or the final siege on Washington D.C., which is tense and upsetting, but never less than enthralling. The soundscape of the film is remarkable as well, effectively using gunshots, camera clicks, and pitch-perfect song choices to leave the audience unbalanced (I have not been able to get “Dream Baby Dream” by Suicide out of my head, since I saw the final shot).
No matter what your political stance is, I think everyone should go and see this movie, for no other reason than that it is a remarkably made and well-acted war thriller. It is the message of the film that lands the hardest though, and this is a warning cry for the fate of our country if there ever was one. Alex Garland is not interested in picking sides in this movie, and we should not be either. As dark as a film as this is, I also think it is an open-hearted plea to remember to not let ourselves be overtaken by the mania of fighting with one another just to fight, but also as a plea to not let us be numb to the horrific things going on in our world right now. I will not be able to shake off its effects for a very long time, and I think that that is a very good thing.
Photo by UX Gun on Unsplash