Civil War
Writer/director Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) is smart enough to almost completely avoid any specific real-world reference points outside a few familiar terms mentioned in passing. However, Garland takes it even further by deciding to completely avoid talking about the specifics of the civil war at all. You will not learn how the country got to the point of war in the world of this movie. You won't really know the politics of the parties (or even any of the characters) involved. None of this is a spoiler, because the movie is not, in fact, even about a civil war; the civil war is merely a backdrop for the themes that Garland decides to focus on instead.
This approach is inevitably going to upset a lot of people who wanted to see the movie that seemed to be promised in the trailers. And really, it's hard to blame them; the dramatic, battle-heavy tone and bombastic images of warfare now feel a bit like misleading advertising. The lack of worldbuilding details won't help win over the type of moviegoers who go crazy when there are no answers to why the world of the movie is the way it is. Others still will call it a cop-out that the movie doesn't choose a side, claiming that bothsidesism is irresponsible when it seems one of the sides is more dangerous than the other.
Alex Garland and the team at A24 surely knew all of this well in advance. It's probably not incorrect to say that they leaned into all of this American turmoil in order to drum up more interest and get butts in the seats for this, at $50 million, their biggest budget and highest profile movie release in the company's burgeoning history. Whether or not we should blame the actual movie itself for the expectations set by its marketing is another debate that deserves more space than I'm going to give it here. However, in this era of pre-release hype and online conversation, it's really, really hard not to have your overall feelings about the movie affected by things not actually in the movie at all.
The movie we did get (which I suppose I should actually talk about) is quite good. We almost exclusively follow famous war photographer Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and her colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) as they travel the front lines of various battles, trying to find out where the most action is. We come to understand the surging "Western Forces," led by Texas and California, are making their final push into Washington, D.C. to take over the capitol and kill the third-term, dictatorial President (Nick Offerman), who is quickly running out of support and is bunkered up in the White House. The areas in and around the capitol are lawless and incredibly dangerous, and the journalists understand they will be risking very probable death to try and be there when the takeover happens. Along for the ride are a grizzled old veteran journalist (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and the young, aspiring photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) who completely idolizes Lee.
It's very much an unexpected road trip movie, as the small crew drive a few hundred miles in a van while witnessing gunfights, dodging increasing gunfire, and surveying the wreckage of the country. The streets are hauntingly empty, buildings and houses shuttered or half-destroyed, with survivors mostly confined to heavily guarded makeshift communities. Danger lurks around every corner; at one point, the van turns down a street only to find themselves in the middle of a standoff between snipers. "What side are they on?" asks Joel as he takes cover next to one shooter. "I don't know," is the bemused reply. "He's trying to kill me and I'm trying to kill him." In another scene, a paramilitary solider of unknown allegiance executes hostages who aren't the "right kind of American." Which side of the war he's on is unclear.
While the movie isn't really about the civil war that takes place in the world of the movie, it is about war generally, and specifically about how any kind of war in this country would end in complete disaster. While some people believe that war and violence may be the only actual effective way to bring about the desired change for each side of the political spectrum, Garland shows the cost of what that would probably look like. Death and destruction become commonplace, murder is seen as justifiable on both sides, and eventually the lines dissolve completely into chaos. If America is a country with an alarming leak in empathy, "Civil War" is the seemingly natural conclusion.
More interesting is the decision to put the focus on journalists. Lee and Joel aim to remain objective, believing themselves to be simply capturing the carnage they see without opinion or even emotion. These two have seen so much death that it barely registers anymore; when the young and impressionable Jessie is badly shaken up after witnessing some gruesome violence, Lee sniffs and coldly tells her to get used to it, this is the job and it's only going to get worse. The photographers are constantly in the thick of battles, hiding behind soldiers who don't seem to mind their presence at all, watching people fall dead all around them, never letting anything stop them from snapping photos. They have to get that shot that makes them famous, they have to be on the scene first to beat the other outlets, and the actual human cost of the war means nothing to them.
Garland seems to be attacking the jaded apathy and fading ethics of America's media, making them just as culpable as either of the two "sides." When getting (or being a part of) the story is more important than the human lives directly affected, it's easy to toss aside things like "empathy" or "humanity". We are used to seeing journalists as heroes in these types of movies, and they are decidedly not so in "Civil War." When Jessie eventually becomes just as obsessed with getting the shot as her hero, it's not a moment of victory, it's one of sadness and despair. This realization eventually crushes Lee and directly sets up the end of her character arc, in what may be Garland's half-hearted attempt to not completely demonize the profession.
From a technical standpoint, this is Garland's slickest production to date, with seamless effects, stunning photography, clever editing (I especially liked the inclusion of quick shots of black and white photos whenever a photographer snaps a scene), and an eye-popping action sequence at the movie's end. Had they chosen to make this a full action epic, it would've been something. Dunst is the standout in the acting department, as she gets the most complete story arc. She effectively plays the hardened reporter and tough-as-nails badass, but wonderfully sells the moments when that facade begins to break.
In the end, this is a movie about ideas. It is a movie about war, but not a war movie. If you can adjust your expectations accordingly, you may really engage with "Civil War" and find a lot there to chew on. That's easier said than done, which is interesting commentary in itself.
