It's Not the Movie You Think It Is, Civil War

 The publication date of this review is April 12, 2024. Civil War is currently available on Amazon and iTunes for purchase or rental as of May 24.

Americans certainly enjoy watching their institutions fall apart on film. In Roland Emmerich's 1996 film Independence Day, viewers cheered and applauded as aliens detonated the White House, which was, at the time, sort of news. Since then, it has become commonplace for blockbusters—especially the disaster-themed ones—to destroy or otherwise tarnish a landmark or a famous government structure. (After 9/11, we took a short break—"too soon," etc.—but as soon as the cultural all-clear was given, we immediately resumed.) Perhaps as a result of our institutions' long-standing reputation for security and stability, the possibility that aliens might destroy them, Dylan McDermott, zombies, or meteors all became filthy fantasies we wanted to watch repeatedly and endlessly on TV. In a 2022 poll, almost 40% of respondents stated they believed a civil war will break out within the next ten years, illustrating how all too real a variation of this kind of instability has grown in recent years. The relentless onslaught of catastrophic devastation on our screens doesn't seem completely unrelated, in my opinion. We've been observing the fantasy for so long that we now think we're a part of it.

Another reality of often indulging in our dreams is that we grow numb to them. The way that Alex Garland's Civil War simultaneously embraces and scorns our infatuation with the notion that America is a battleground is what makes it so deviously clever. In this one, no actual monuments are destroyed with great force. This time, the show is sly yet all-consuming in a way. The American ideal is being destroyed in the Civil War.

Additionally, there is the Florida Alliance. Mass graves, snipers, and death squads are scattered over the countryside, and smoke rises from the towns. The highways are strewn with walls of crashed automobiles. Suicide bombers plunge into crowds waiting for water rations.The movie takes place in what looks to be the present, but in this version of events, secessionist movements and strongman tactics have split the US into several armed, politically undefined factions. We're told that the president, Nick Offerman, has killed journalists on sight, disbanded the FBI, and is currently in his third term because he has refused to cede power. The states of Texas and California have merged to become the Western Front. Additionally, there is the Florida Alliance. Mass graves, snipers, and death squads are scattered over the countryside, and smoke rises from the towns. The highways are strewn with walls of crashed automobiles. Suicide bombers plunge into crowds waiting for water rations.

For Kirsten Dunst's Lee and Wagner Moura's Joel, two war journalists traveling from New York City to Washington, D.C. for an exclusive and potentially hazardous interview with the embattled president, the significance of how we got here and what these people are fighting over is largely immaterial. Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), an elderly reporter who want to travel to the front lines in Charlottesville, and Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a young, inexperienced photographer who aspires to a career like Lee's, are riding along in their van. Lee finds both of them bothersome. Sammy is too old, and Jessie is too young. Neither of them belongs on the blood-stained roadways that divide the United States of America.

Gathering at hotel bars, the journalists covering this war get wasted and yuk it up with a jacked-up bonhomie we may recognize from foreign-set films like Salvador, The Killing Fields, and Under Fire. Most of them are oblivious to the atrocities they are documenting. Lee informs the young Jessie that it is not their place to inquire or become involved when she is left traumatized by an early encounter with a guy who threatens to shoot two unarmed, tortured, and barely alive captives: "We take pictures so others can ask these questions."

Lee has developed a protective shell around herself, which is one of the reasons she is such a legend in her industry. She's hoping to obtain the photo. That is all. She only shows Jessie protection when she fears the girl would impede their progress or ruin their objectives. "If I got shot, would you capture that moment on camera?" Jessie queries. "What are your thoughts?" Lee answers, as though the response were a resounding yes. However, we also realize that Lee is still psychologically affected by what she has witnessed. She closes her eyes and revisits the atrocities she has captured on camera as she is by herself in a hotel bathtub at night. "I believed I was giving a warning to my family: Don't do this," Speaking on her past work, she says. "But here we are." While Dunst can make almost any statement sound sincere, Garland can be awkward and overt in his dialogue. Together, her words and face convey a different story, illuminating this confused woman. 

In some ways, the movie is an embodiment of Lee's devastated numbness. In addition to his skill at creating tension and his ability to convey the necessary terror in his depictions of shocking violence, Garland also employs amusing provocations to advance his story. The director transitions to a montage set to De La Soul's "Say No Go," a song about a horrifying subject that gives the gory visuals onscreen a lively pace, following one gory scene in which guerrillas shoot a sobbing soldier. (It made me think of how, following a similar skirmish, Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket cut to the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird.")

Even the film's episodic structure, which amounts to nothing more than a horrifying travelogue along the Eastern Seaboard ripped apart by conflict and where our heroes are met with a shocking new incident at every turn, seems provocative. Being able to go past such horrors is part of closing oneself off to them, and Civil War, like its characters, swaggers past each horrible episode with unperturbed brio. This occasionally gives the movie a strange, weightless feeling. Its characters are nomads and watchers. As the film progresses, if anything, they become less engaged in what they are seeing.

It makes sense that Civil War has drawn criticism for lacking a clear political viewpoint and for failing to clearly define the stances of its opposing groups. But is there really any reasonable person who would desire a version of this movie that tries to explain these people's political views or, worse, takes a stance in its made-up conflict? (It sounds like the worst movie ever produced.) Garland has obviously done more research on media portrayals of other countries' war zones, even if he does include brief clips of actual news footage from a range of recent American disruptions.

Perhaps his best idea, and the reason the movie feels more pointed than cowardly for its lack of political context: The idea behind this is to show Americans behaving in a manner similar to what we have witnessed in other foreign crises, such as those in Gaza, Iraq, Vietnam, Lebanon, the former Yugoslavia, and so on. Thus, Civil War ultimately turns into a film about itself. It's about how we refuse to let images from battles like these affect us, regardless matter how realistic war in the US is or how tragic such an event would be. It's more of a challenge to think critically and try to put ourselves in other people's shoes. rather a warning; this is a Here's What It's Like movie, not an It Can Happen Here one. It is more interested in getting us to wonder why we are emotionless than in making us feel anything at all.