Civil War misses out on being the most stressful A24 film by the width of an uncut gem. But make no mistake: You are simply not going to have a good time watching writer/director Alex Garland’s near-future lament. To quote this movie’s president and a real-life former one, “many people are even saying” that this movie is a warning. Sadly, I think they’re misreading it. This feels more like a full-on, shoulder-slumping defeat.
There’s no hope in Civil War. Although it is set some time in the very, very near future, it doesn’t seem like Garland is saying these events can be avoided. Maybe he is saying that in interviews? Did he do Hot Ones yet? But the film itself feels like it’s explicitly saying these events could have been avoided but weren’t. It isn’t a call to action, it’s remorse.
Maybe we wouldn’t end up with mass graves filled with Americans if we hadn’t allowed war to be declared on the press. Perhaps we could have avoided bombed out suburbs if we had understood how the powerful use political division for personal gain as carelessly as a drone strike. Conceivably, we may have remained a viable country by realizing what happens “over there” can happen right here.
Lee (Kirsten Dunst) literally says as much. Talking to her elder mentor, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), the war photographer explains that every time she took pictures of overseas atrocities, “I thought I was sending a message home: Don’t do this. But here we are.”
Here we are.
Set in the last days of America’s worst remake idea, we don’t get a blow-by-blow of how this civil war came to be. But it’s pretty easy to piece it together. A fascistic strongman has been in the White House for three terms, and the only way to get him out is with guns. Lee and her journalist buddy, Joel (Wagner Moura), are trekking across the war-torn country to get what is likely the final interview with the President (Nick Offerman). Along the way, they pick up a newbie photog, Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), who idolizes Lee. Sammy begs his way in as well, and the quartet proceeds to have just the absolute worst road trip.
Filled with so much tension you’d think Christoph Waltz had ordered milk, Civil War isn’t preachy. It’s just scary. And sad. So very sad. Everyone seemed to expect the film to be dripping in politics at best or exploitative of a real-life insurrection at worst. It’s neither. It’s a hurts-down-to-your-bone wail, a banshee’s scream saying “Look at what we’ve become.” Dunst does a lot of that shrieking, masterfully, without ever raising her voice.
Beyond her stunning performance, perhaps the most remarkable thing is how Garland is able to show that journalism is the key to freedom without ever making journalists themselves into saints or heroes. Joel is pretty pervy, declaring how physically aroused he gets at watching war. Lee is flat-out dead inside. Even young idealistic Jessie comes to realize her passion isn’t for liberating minds with images of the truth so much as a kind of addiction. They are not heroes, but what they do is heroic.
“Who watches the Watchmen” dates back to “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” It comes from arguably the most famous empire that thought itself too big to fail. Yada yada yada, Rome burned. This is one version of what that fire will look like here. Again, this isn’t preaching to the choir, warning viewers to “vote or die.” It spends no time eviscerating the political views of “the bad guys.” The film’s whole premise is that doing that kinda shit doesn’t work.
The gut-punch here is the innate inevitability of it all.
Grade = A+
Other Critical Voices to Consider
Justin Chang at The New Yorker says “The point, if Civil War has one, is that war is not only hell but also addictive, and that, for an alarming swath of the population, the joy of meting out rough justice with a rifle outstrips any deeper moral or ideological convictions.”
Susan Kamyab at the Alliance of Women Film Journalists says “Civil War is far more terrifying than any horror film you’ll see this year. Disturbingly effective and brilliantly shot. Kirsten Dunst gives a gripping and powerful performance in Alex Garland’s best movie yet.”
Siddhant Adlakha at Inverse says “That Civil War uses this current, incendiary, post-January 6th moment in American history as its launchpad will understandably frustrate some viewers, since it reveals no instructive commentary on the current political moment. But the characters’ resultant struggle between observing and intervening is one that Garland wrestles with in the form of his enrapturing images of urban warfare, which he synthesizes into an upsetting sensory experience accompanied by thundering cacophonies and paralyzing scenes of war and savagery so vast, intense, and overwhelming that you can practically taste the gunpowder lingering in the air.”