A24’s Civil War arrives shrouded in controversy. Centering around a fictional near-future conflict in a divided America, the movie’s marketing drew immediate comparisons to the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Moreover, questions arose about whether English writer-director Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) even had the necessary insight to tell this story. And make no mistake, the discourse will get nastier once A24 unleashes Civil War on the public. It’s a charged film, one that allows each audience member to bring their own baggage that will color their viewing experience. It’s also utterly brilliant. Garland’s latest reflects on the importance of journalism as much as it paints a vivid portrait of division. A descent into the dark heart of a decaying nation, Civil War reminds us why Alex Garland is one of our most vital filmmakers.
At an unspecified time in the future, the United States is unrecognizable from what it once was. The “loyalist states” follow an increasingly authoritarian central government. The Florida Alliance in the Southeast remains relatively independent. Texas and California have banded together to form the Western Forces, beginning to gain serious ground against the oppressive U.S. government. Renowned war photojournalist Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and her colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) act quickly in this political turmoil to travel to Washington D.C. for the chance of a lifetime: interviewing the President of the United States (Nick Offerman). They’re joined by veteran writer Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and newcomer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), who idolizes Lee as her role model.
Alex Garland hasn’t lost a step in creating multi-faceted characters. Lee is a fascinating protagonist because Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog) plays her so coldly. Seeing half-dead American bodies strung up by a psychotic hillbilly, her immediate response is to take a photo. The horrors she faces are secondary to the task at hand. This is arguably Dunst’s most standout role since 2011’s Melancholia, as it plays against type in ways that showcase her subtlety and ability to say more through powerful silence than with words. Meanwhile, Wagner Moura (Narcos) has tons of fun as Joel, an adrenaline junkie who relishes being on the front lines. Stephen McKinley Henderson (Dune) is also a much-welcomed presence, bringing a restrained tenderness to the rest of the horrifying proceedings.
Above all, Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla) is the true heart and soul of the film. She has a ravenous appetite for getting into the thick of conflict but initially can’t handle the macabre images she’s supposed to document with her camera. A strong example of this comes in the aforementioned scene involving the strung-up civilians. While Lee takes the picture dead-eyed, Jessie can’t bring herself to do anything but stand there, petrified in fear. However, as the plot progresses, Jessie becomes more hardened, transforming into the sort of passive observer Lee has become. Civil War argues that this kind of desensitization might sadly be a necessity for members of the media.
Journalism is at the very core of A24’s Civil War. Garland’s go-to cinematographer, Rob Hardy, distinctively frames journalists on the front lines with the Western allies, fighting their own battles to get the truth out to the American people. In a country increasingly hostile towards journalism, Alex Garland underlines them as an essential pillar of democracy. Yet, this is no fawning love letter to them either. As images of soldiers bleeding out play out before the eyes of the journalists, Hardy freeze-frames them in black-and-white tableaus. There’s a dissonance between the horrors we are forced to witness as the audience and the matter-of-fact nature of these pictures, establishing a prickly suggestion that their work has a detached, almost exploitative quality.
Alex Garland wants us to sit in discomfort throughout Civil War. Far from the didactic stylings of 2022’s Men, he doesn’t give us all the answers in his screenplay. There’s an incredibly jarring effect that comes from seeing a Western Forces member being shot to death juxtaposed by the immediate needle drop of an upbeat De La Soul song. The tonal dissonance of that song playing over images of horror gets a knee-jerk reaction out of the viewer, though it’s not just for cheap shock value. It emulates the journalists’ need to drown out their feelings about what they are documenting, just as the song drowns out most of the horrific noises.
Furthermore, the actual political commentary of Civil War is wildly complex. Alex Garland wisely leaves out the full context behind his war movie. There’s a brief mention of “the massacre of Antifa” that happened some 20-30 years before the film’s events. A chilling Nick Offerman (The Last of Us) as the Loyalist President feels like the final evolution of the MAGA mindset. He’s an unflinching authoritarian who has taken a third term (possibly more) for himself, militarized the police, disbanded the FBI, and authorized drone strikes on his fellow Americans. It’s easy to see Offerman’s character as a direct riff on corrupt politicians like Donald Trump. But Garland is going for something far scarier: furthering that dangerous ideology in a successor. The script doesn’t dive into any more specifics. All that we know is that this is the natural extension of the sharp division that currently embroils the country.
All sense of ideology crumbles in a hail of gunfire and bloodshed. Mirroring Francis Ford Coppola’s seminal masterpiece Apocalypse Now, Alex Garland’s Civil War is a journey into the decaying heart of darkness embroiling America. Apathy is another core tenet of the film’s messaging. Rather, that apathy is a smokescreen concealing the deep pain that the collapse of civilization has caused. During a visit to a small town that appears to be completely ignoring the war, a shopkeeper explains that “they stay out of it” while snipers are stationed on the roof of every building. Like it or not, everyone has to reckon with what’s going on at some point or another.
Courtesy of A24
On that note, there will always be men like an unnamed militia man played by Jesse Plemons (Killers of the Flower Moon) who will take their patriotism to the most dangerous levels. We don’t know which faction he fights for, but we know that he will shoot to kill based on whether someone fits his ideals or not, asking the group, “What kind of American are you?” The many gut-wrenching sights our leading group of journalists record on the road to the White House lead to one endgame: outright apocalyptic warfare. This comes to pass in the third-act storming of Washington D.C., where the loyalists take a last stand against the Western Forces. Monuments are destroyed, the pristine image of prosperity goes up in smoke, and the very iconography of America crumbles before our eyes.
Rob Hardy finally pulls back from purely being in the perspective of the journalists, surveying the final battle through free-flowing camerawork that can go from intimate one-on-one skirmishes to a complete bird’s eye overview in a matter of seconds. This is the stuff that IMAX was made for. There’s nothing else on this scale in A24’s stable. Or even blockbuster movies, for that matter. The colossal $50 million investment A24 has made in Alex Garland is on full display, and it opens the door for what the beloved indie studio could take further risks on in the future. It almost outclasses Dune: Part Two in its usage of the IMAX format. Applying this level of technical craft to such polarizing images is exceptionally bold. And it’s all capped off by a final moment that will anger many people. For some, it will capitalize the movie as a genuine masterpiece.
The controversy around A24’s Civil War will not die down anytime soon. In a political filmmaking landscape that demands hard stances, filmmaker Alex Garland completely refuses to fully explain himself. Because of that ambiguity, the narrative’s themes and politics offer a feast to chew on. Civil War is a reflection of what you bring to it. That puts the impetus on the viewer to meet the film on its level. Some won’t like what they find. The nature of that discussion is what will ultimately make this film immortal. Alex Garland’s Civil War is the perfect movie for the modern moment, whether we like it or not.
Release Date: April 12, 2024.
Directed by Alex Garland.
Written by Alex Garland.
Produced by Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich, & Gregory Goodman.
Main Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman, Jefferson White, Juani Feliz, Nelson Lee, Edmund Donovan, Karl Glusman, Jin Ha, Jojo T. Gibbs, Jess Matney, & Jesse Plemons.
Cinematographer: Rob Hardy.
Composer: Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow.
Production Companies: DNA Films & IPR.VC.
Distributor: A24.
Runtime: 109 minutes.
Rated R.
