Josh Reviews Alex Garland’s Civil War

Alex Garland’s film Civil War is set in the very near future, in a world in which the United States has collapsed into civil war, with several secessionist factions violently battling a central government led by a third-term president (Nick Offerman).  Lee (Kirsten Dunst) is a veteran war photographer who, after years of chronicling wars abroad, is now photographing this devastating war on her home soil.  She and her partner Joel (Wagner Moura) decide to make the dangerous journey from New York City to war-torn Washington, D.C., in order to try to interview the reclusive president, who hasn’t given an interview in 14 months.  They’re joined by Lee’s mentor, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who is a writer for The New York Times, as well as the young Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), who aspires to be a tough war photographer like Lee and who talks her way onto the trip.

Alex Garland’s film Ex Machina made me a fan for life.  (I also enjoyed his strange, divisive second film, Annihilation, which stars Natalie Portman.)  I was interested in this new film but missed it in theaters when it was released in the spring.  I’m glad to have caught up to it.

Civil War is powerful and haunting.  All four lead actors (Ms. Dunst, Ms. Spaeny, Mr. Moura and Mr. Henderson) are terrific, and the film has a strong message to convey about the state of our country today.  Civil War is a warning, a clarion call to take action to deal with the divisions threatening to rip apart the United States right now, lest we find ourselves in the world this film depicts.  Alex Garland’s film is trying to tell us that a civil war is something real, something that could actually happen right here.  In a post January 6th, 2021 world, this is a warning that should send a chill down the spine of anyone paying attention.

There’s a terrifying scene late in the film in which the four journalists encounter two blood-thirsty soldiers filling a mass grave; one of the soldiers asks the group “what kind of American are you?”  It’s a chilling reminder of the us-versus-them divisions we so easily allow ourselves to draw, based on race, geography, politics, whatever.

I’m glad the film doesn’t allow any of the factions depicted in the on-screen Civil War to be easily connected with our current political parties.  It’s a clever touch that the film doesn’t even give the audience enough information to know who to be rooting for.  Is the President an authoritarian villain who deserves to be overthrown?  Or is the the last bastion of our familiar values, in danger of being overtaken by murderous, racist militia thugs?  We don’t know!  I love that choice.  It allows us to focus more specifically on the characters, and also more broadly on the larger points the film is making about the dangers of letting our divisions — both real and imagined — tear us apart and lead us to violence.

These are not the only subjects with which Civil War grapples.  The film is also an interesting look at the ethics of journalism and what it means to be an uninvolved observer.  I feel like that’s a value that has been lost in today’s America.  I enjoyed the way the film allows the characters to explore what this means, and to see both sides of this.  One can see a war photographer as noble, but also as cold and sinfully uninvolved.  I liked that the film played with both sides of this.

I found the film very emotionally affecting.  Mr. Garland and cinematographer Rob Hardy have crafted a hauntingly beautiful film, one packed with imagery that has stuck with me ever since watching this film.  I was as affected by the quiet moments of stillness (shots of wrecked cars abandoned on a highway; a crashed helicopter in a suburban shopping center parking lot) as I was during the moments of intense action (a shoot-out along a road littered with abandoned Christmas decorations; the massive final battle in the streets of Washington, D.C.).

The film has a structure familiar to anyone who’s ever seen Apocalypse Now — a journey filled with episodes of joy and terror as our characters make their way to their final destination, unsure what they’ll find there.  But the structure works!

This is easily my favorite performance by Kirsten Dunst.  She’s wonderful in the film as Lee.  She embodies Lee’s toughness while also showing us, in her face and, in her stillness, the psychological toll Lee’s life has taken.  I’m impressed by the nuance of Ms. Dunst’s work here, and it’s nice to see her playing a grown-up with some miles on her.  I’d just seen Alien: Romulus, in which Cailee Spaeny plays the lead role, so it was fun to see her here too.  Ms. Spaeny is terrific as the Jessie, the young whipper-snapper who annoys Lee by reminding her of the innocent, enthusiastic go-getter she used to be.  It’s Jessie who has the most significant arc in the film, as we see her go from a newbie without a clue what she’s doing to a tough, unflappable, top-of-her-game professional by the end.  Ms. Spaeny does a terrific job playing all the various small steps along this journey.

Wagner Moura (Elysium) is wonderful as Joel.  Joel has a chatty energy that’s a lovely contrast to the internal, almost sullen Lee.  There’s an interesting mid-movie scene between Joel and Jessie in the back of their car in which Joel is sort of sleezy, hitting on the young Jessie.  I was thrown a little by that scene at first, but I like the way the film allows Joel — and all the characters — to have some flaws.  I was thrilled to see Stephen McKinley Henderson (Lincoln, Fences, Lady Bird, and he played Thufir Hawat in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune) as Sammy.  I love Mr. Henderson, and it’s great fun to see him given such a meaty role here.  Sammy feels like the smartest and most noble of the foursome; Mr. Henderson gives him tremendous dignity.  Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) is perfect in a small role as the President, and I liked seeing Sonoya Mizuno (who was great in Ex Machina and has popped up in most of Alex Garland’s subsequent projects) in a small role as a journalist embedded in the “Western Forces” army (the main group attacking Washington, D.C.).  Jesse Plemons (Breaking Bad, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Killers of the Flower Moon) is terrific in his one scene, playing another in a long list of total psychos.

I have one small complaint about the film, and it’s about the ending.  Beware SPOILERS in the next paragraph!  Stop reading if you haven’t yet seen this film!

Still here?  OK, I was not wild about the cliche ending given to Kirsten Dunst’s character of Lee, who gets shot pushing Jessie out of the way of a bullet.  That felt like a sort of eye-rolling, familiar movie-trope ending that disappointed me in what was otherwise such a sharply written and well-conceived film.  It also felt like it was an easy out of the complicated questions the film had raised, about whether Lee’s dispassionate observation as a photographer — as opposed to getting involved in the events around here — were noble or not, and also what those choices meant for her self and her soul.  If Lee decided to make a change to her life, I’d have rather seen her live with the effects of those choices, as opposed to just getting shot and dying.  That felt lame to me.

Other than that one off-note to me, I was quite captivated by Civil War.  The film is beautifully made, it has a wonderful group of actors doing strong work, and it has an important message.  Check this one out if, like me, you missed it in theaters.

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