It’s no mystery that we are in polarizing times. With online discourse fanning the flames of mundane disagreements into profound cultural wedges, it’s as difficult as it has ever been to discuss anything civilly anymore. This is especially true when discussing media, as too many people are quick to project their own prejudices upon any new TV show or film without ever having seen one second of it. Sometimes you’ll get a film that can rise above the “culture war” attacks, like last year’s Barbie (2023) did, but too often a new movie that tries to shake up the normal formula will be subjugated to attacks from purists, or people who are just looking to stir up controversy just for the clicks. While online discourse is tiresome when it delves into “culture war” discussions, there is also the growing anxiety that is rising from the lack of accountability in our media coverage. We are at a point where accountability can not keep up with the quickness of viral social media, and misinformation has become rampant in our culture. Before the truth wills out, the misinformation will sadly have taken hold with too many people, and this has led to the rise of radicalization which leads to increasingly tense situations in our society. Worries about rising violence in our communities are becoming ever more a concern in today’s age, and that makes many people wonder if our union as a nation is heading toward a cataclysmic end. With that worry circulating in our culture, it makes one wonder how movies of this era will document the moment we are living in. Given how “culture war” discussions have become so toxic in recent years, any movie or show that tries to take it head on is likely to face a heavy bit of scrutiny and resistance. And stirring up controversy is something that the major movie studios are keen to avoid. Luckily there are risk takers out there like A24 who are willing to stick their necks out and make a movie that at the very least tries to put some perspective on what a moment like this could lead us towards.
Into this tumultuous time comes a new film from Writer and Director Alex Garland. Garland first gained notoriety for his gritty and grounded screenplay for the zombie flick 28 Days Later (2002), which was directed for the screen by Danny Boyle. Garland would contribute a number of other celebrated screenplays before ultimately stepping behind the camera himself. His directorial debut, Ex Machina (2015) was lauded for it’s subtle, grounded portrayal of the perils of unchecked A.I. implementation, and how it could wreck havoc by blurring the lines between reality and artificiality. It also won a surprise academy award for it’s visual effects, which did a remarkable job of transforming actress Alicia Vikander into a humanoid robot. Garland’s follow-up, Annihilation (2018) was even more of a mind-trip, bringing a new twist to the alien invasion subgenre of Science Fiction. He left his Sci-Fi comfort zone with the horror thriller Men (2022), which is his most divisive film to date, as well as his least successful at the box office. Coming off of that, he is embarking on his most ambitious film yet as a filmmaker with a scenario that feels eerily timely. Civil War (2024) imagines a scenario where the United States of America has broken out into a second civil war. It’s a risky type of movie to make because in this kind of climate, especially in an election year, too many people are going to try to project their own political views upon the movie, which could either drive people away or be misinterpreted as something it is not. Before the movie even was released, some pundits were poking holes in the premise of the movie, noting that the U.S. government in the film is at war with an alliance of the states of California and Texas, which of course is not something that could happen today given that both of those state’s governments are polar opposites in their political make-up at the moment. But, Alex Garland is not telling a story about America as it is now, but is instead imagining an America that could exist and telling us a story about the people who would be caught up in the chaos that a modern Civil War could bring.
The subjects of Alex Garland’s Civil War are not the main players in this nation at war with itself, but rather the people who are risking their lives trying to capture the memory of it. It’s a story about a rag tag group of journalists who risk their lives in order to capture the brutal reality of the war as it happens. We meet Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and Joel (Wagner Moura), two Reuters affiliated documentarians who are partnered up as they cover rioting in the war torn city of New York. Lee is a celebrated veteran photographer who has seen one too many wars in her lifetime, while Joel is an interviewer who craves the adrenaline rush of combat. While they make rest in their hotel, they have a conversation with a veteran New York Times journalist named Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who was once a mentor to the two. They let it slip to Sammy that their next goal is to head to Washington D.C. and get an exclusive interview with the President of the United States (Nick Offerman). Sammy tells them it’s a suicide mission, as the Western Forces of California and Texas have advanced far into the Government’s territory and are now encircling the Capital. And if they even make it past the frontlines and into D.C., the President’s army has been ordered to shoot all intruders, including journalists. Lee and Joel still remain determined, and they even offer Sammy a ride knowing that he has the same goal that they do. Before they make their treacherous trip southward, the team takes on another passenger, a young freelance photographer named Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) who looks up to Lee and wants to get her first taste of combat coverage. The four passengers head out on a Heart of Darkness like journey through the depths of the once prosperous nation now brought to ruin through conflict. Through it, they experience the extremes of both sides of the battle, and even have run ins with psychopaths who thrive in the chaos of war. And as they get closer to Washington, D.C., the more violent and dark the world becomes.
Suffice to say, Alex Garland’s Civil War is not an easy movie to watch. The film is very blunt about the atrocities of war and how it is often impossible to decipher who are the good and bad guys in the moment of battle. It’s a very smart move on Garland’s part to not make the movie about the politics of the the two warring sides, but instead center the movie on the journalists who put their lives on the line in order to document the events that take place. Now the movie is not entirely apolitical; the film does portray the President as a despotic dictator who has committed atrocities in the past against the American people as a means to hold onto power, and the timing of the story puts the conflict in it’s final days where the Government is on it’s last legs, showing definitively who the victors in this war will be. But that’s all background noise. Garland’s movie doesn’t try to hold up a mirror to our current political climate, but rather makes us the audience understand the gruesome nature of war by showing us an all too realistic portrayal of modern combat in a setting which hasn’t seen combat on it’s soil since the first Civil War. The movie’s message is that there’s nothing glamourous about fighting in a war, and that the hard work of wartime journalists is terrifying but also essential. And that’s what makes the movie such a profound experience that really needs to be experienced. If anything, this is a more essential movie than anything that would have carried a more pointed political argument. Anyone who trivializes the nature of war and thinks that another Civil War fought in this country would be an ideal outcome in order to silence those who disagree with them should be required to watch this movie and see what a folly that would be. It’s a profound statement that I’m happy to see Alex Garland make.
Despite working with a bigger canvas and budget, Garland’s Civil War is still just as grounded as most of his other movies. Garland’s directorial style is not flashy and remains centered and precise, giving us a very you are there feel. This helps very much with the world building of the movie. The America in this film is not some post-Apocalyptic hellscape, but rather a country that still looks familiar and somewhat in tact, but has been scarred by battle. One of the things that this movie reminded me of is the recent Best Documentary winner at this year’s Academy Awards, 20 Days in Mariupol (2023), which was a movie compiled of footage from real war journalists who captured the early days of the Ukraine-Russian war in 2022 in the titular war torn city. Having seen that documentary and the horrible things that it shows, you see the desperate ways that people try to hold their cities together even as war is trying to tear it apart. Places that were once peaceful suddenly become devoid of life and littered with the reminders of war, like the wreckage of a helicopter in a mall parking lot, or an apartment high rise turned into a swiss cheese like ruin through constant shelling. In Garland’s film, he juxtaposes those images in profound ways that constantly reminds you of how fragile peacetime can be, and how things we just take for granted can be taken away suddenly. Suddenly, a routine gas station stop could turn into a life or death situation depending on how you interact with the locals. There are times in the movie where I do feel Garland’s imagination does exceed the limitations of his budget, as some of the rendering with the visual effects do look a little cheap and it breaks the illusion, but thankfully these are rare as the movie presents the majority of the action in ground level depictions of combat. And this is definitely a movie that benefits from a robust sound system as the battle scenes are loud and intense.
The staging of the battle scenes are definitely the highlight of the movie, as Alex Garland puts you right on the ground in the midst of it all. You really experience the battles in this movie the way that the war journalists would. One thing that I really liked in this movie is the emphasis it puts on capturing moments in combat that will inevitably be what the war leaves behind and frames it’s history. This is shown in the film as snapshots taken by the characters of Lee and Jessie. As the battle scenes play out, you see the characters aim their cameras and then the movie pauses for a second and displays the still photo that they just took, with the sound also being paused in that scene to emphasize the singular documentation that has been made. It makes you think of the war photographs that have survived throughout history and how those brief moments have shaped our understanding of what the wars were, from something triumphant like the flag raising in the Battle of Iwo Jima to something horrific like the pained faces of the survivors of the My Lai Massacre. A picture can say a thousand words, and this movie puts an emphasis on what it means to capture a moment that matters in a battleground photograph. Jessie even uses an older model camera that runs on film, and she is able to capture her subjects in an even grittier black and white image. While the movie is limited in budget, it nevertheless feels big when viewed through the eyes of the characters in this movie. This is especially true in the climatic battle in Washington D.C. at the end of the film. The movie doesn’t try to be epic in it’s depiction of a fortified D.C., but rather shows us what it likely would look like in a realistic sense, meaning crude barricades quickly built in an urban setting. The battle scenes are still shot in an impressive way by cinematographer Rob Hardy where you do feel the scope of the conflict as it’s happening, and it’s definitely the type of movie that benefits from the biggest possible screen.
A lot of the success of the movie comes down to the authenticity of the performances in the film. We know very little about the characters other than what their jobs are, and they only give us the briefest of backstory. Mainly, it’s up to the actors to define these personalities, and the cast assembled does an outstanding job. Kirsten Dunst does an especially great job of conveying a person who is just numb to all the violence that surrounds her. There’s a great moment in the movie where she is just silently staring off in the direction of a battle that is glowing in the distance under a night sky, and her face just reads this hardened, jaded lack of optimism that tells you so much about her character. But Kirsten also does a great job of showing those brief moments of warmth, especially when Cailee Spaeny’s Jessie manages to crack through that wall with her more upbeat personality. Spaeny also does a great job of portraying that spunky, novice personality within Jessie that you watch get broken down as she gets into increasingly hairier situations. Wagner Moura provides the movie with some of it’s brief moments of levity with his gun ho adrenaline junkie portrayal of Joel, who often is the one that has to break the ice in tense situations. Veteran character actor Stephen McKinley Henderson also does a wonderful job of rounding out the quartet with his soulful portrayal of the seasoned and wise journalist Sammy. Nick Offerman, who only briefly appears in the movie, still leaves a strong impression as the lightning rod of a President at the center of the conflict, wisely choosing to not emulate any specific familiar political figure and instead making him one that eerily feels too normal, hiding the fact that in the context of this movie that he’s committed horrible atrocities. What the movie also does a great job with is make all of the minor characters stand out as well. Each new encounter the characters make along the way adds to the tension of the movie, and all the supporting actors do a great job of creating these civilians who are barely hanging on, often through brutal and desperate means. One particular standout is a cameo from Jesse Plemons as a white supremacist mercenary that becomes an especially terrifying obstacle for the main characters.
I don’t know if this is the kind of movie that will change hearts and minds with regard to the divisive cultural situation we are in right now. But, as a cinematic experience, it’s an exceptional piece of work that know doubt will leave an impression on it’s audience. There will be some who will try to frame the movie in a way that fits their own agenda; you would have to think that the movie is courting that a bit by calling itself Civil War. But, upon watching the movie, you’ll see that there is a universal story about survival in here and also about fighting to capture the truth in the moment so that it can be preserved and remembered for future generations to learn from it. Alex Garland and the actors in the movie have said in interviews that this movie is meant to be a love letter to journalism, and specifically to front line journalists who put their life on the lines to document the truth. At a time when so many politicians and media personalities are trying to gaslight people into believing an alternate reality that suits their fortunes through misinformation, the work of these independent, battlefront journalists is even more essential than ever and Civil War does an excellent job of showing us the important role that they play. We are seeing the important work of these journalists making an impact right now with conflicts happening in both Ukraine and the Gaza Strip. What makes Civil War feel so impactful is that it is bringing that unimaginable situation home and showing us how fleeting our domestic peacetime situation can be. We trivialize the idea of a domestic civil war, and in some grotesque cases even fantasize about it, but if one were to break out here in America it would have devastating effects that ruins the lives of everyone involved, and this movie does an effective job of communicating that bleak scenario. Hopefully it makes audiences more aware of how devastating modern warfare is on those countries that are living through today. It’s not a perfect war film; some of Garland’s creative choices do undermine the impact of the harshest scenes, especially some needle drop choices that feel a bit out of place. But as an overall experience, Civil War is harrowing and thought provoking in all the right ways, and in many moments hauntingly beautiful to look at. And to see wartime journalism at it’s finest, please also seek out the Oscar-winning 20 Days in Mariupol, though prepare yourself first for some harsh, graphic content as part of the experience. Civil War may be a dramatized depiction of war through a scenario very much separated from our current political situation, but there is a lot of truth in the story that it is telling with regards to the people who live through such times as depicted in the movie, and it hopefully acts as a cautionary tale for us as we grow more and more closer to having our own petty conflicts flare up into something much worse.
Rating: 8.5/10