In a time of divisive, high-stakes US politics, it’s no surprise that so many people are reacting to Alex Garland’s entire concept online Civil War as if it were naturally poisonous. Garland’s latest film is set on and around the front lines of a near-future America broken into separatist factions (based on the rather astonishing fabulous novel). Men) looks like a timely but opportunistic provocation, a film that seems either exploitative or far too at home in a country whose name, the United States, sounds more ironic and ridiculous with each passing year.
And yet that doesn’t seem to be Garland’s goal Civil War at all. The film is about as apolitical as a story set during a modern American Civil War can get. It’s a character piece that has far more to say about the state of modern journalism and the people behind it than it does about the state of the nation.
It’s almost perverse how little there is Civil War reveals the sides of the central conflict or the causes or crises that led to the war. (Viewers expecting an action film that confirms their own political prejudices and demonizes their opponents will be particularly confused about what they just saw.) This is not a story about the causes or strategies of the American Civil War: It is a personal story about the how and why of war journalism – and how the field changes for someone reporting on a war in their home country rather than on foreign territory.
Lee Miller (Kirsten Dunst) is a veteran war photographer, a celebrated, award-winning and deeply jaded woman who makes a living pretending to be bulletproof in arenas where bullets fly – or at least being bulletproof long enough to to capture unforgettable moments. Narrative images of what bullets do to other people’s bodies and psyches. Her latest assignment: She and her long-time work partner Joel (Wagner Moura) were promised an interview with the President (Nick Offerman), who is now in his third term in office and has had more than a year of public silence.
It’s a dream opportunity for a war correspondent – a chance to make history and, perhaps more importantly, to understand the man whose decisions appeared to be key in pushing the country over the border and into war. However, securing the interview requires a journey of more than 800 miles to Washington, D.C., through active war zones and past enemy barricades erected by state militias or other heavily armed local forces. And on this potentially fatal road trip accompanies Jessie (Priscilla star Cailee Spaeny), a green but ambitious 23-year-old photographer who Lee clearly believes is likely to perish along the way – or that the entire traveling party will perish.
The tension between Lee and Jessie – potential mentor and her potential successor, the past and future of their chosen careers, allies but competitors, looking for the same things in a small profession equally known for its publishing rivalries and compassion strive – form the center of Civil War, far more than the tension between individual political perspectives. Still, the film comes at a time when experts continue to warn about the possibility of a real new American civil war, Garland said Civil War There is little information about the details of the conflicts.
For viewers who want to read between the lines, there’s plenty to read about which states are in rebellion (California, Texas and Florida are all mentioned in passing as separatist states) and about the soldiers – mostly Southern and many rural – who have a lot of screen time. But Lee’s angry exhaustion and Jessie’s fear and excitement about learning more about the profession from someone she respects are the true crux of the story.
All of that does Civil War A film that is more concerned with the question of why war correspondents are interested in the profession than with any particular perspective on current American politics. And it’s a great, haunting meditation on war journalism. Lee and her colleagues are portrayed as half thrill-seeking adrenaline monkeys, half dutiful documentarians determined to bring back a record of events that other people don’t record. They do important work, as the film suggests, but they must be more than a little ruthless, both in choosing a career and in returning to the battlefield.
Lee never makes big speeches about the difference between covering the war in Afghanistan and Charlottesville, but it’s clear that she’s frayed under the pressure of seeing her own country in such a broken and ragged state, and hardened soldiers at the same time demonizing other Americans on both sides. Americans have demonized entire foreign nations. Jessie, for her part, seems unable to cope with the weight of this reality, but is even less accustomed to cruelty and combat. The two women push each other powerfully, with the clear, beautifully drawn but unspoken sense that when Lee looks at Jessie, she sees her own younger, dumber, softer self, and when Jessie looks at Lee, she sees her own future a famous one , capable, confident journalist.
All of the character work is integrated into a series of intense, captivating action sequences in which Lee’s group repeatedly risks death by attempting to force their way across battle lines or team up with soldiers in pitched battles. The final sequence, a run-and-gun battle through city streets and tight building interiors, is a thrilling thrill ride that Garland stages with the immediacy of a war documentary.
The entire film is paced and planned with this dynamic in mind. It’s a particularly beautiful drama, shot with a loving warmth that reflects its point of view, from the perspective of two photographers used to capturing everything around them in vivid, captivating images. A late film sequence shot as the group drives through a forest fire is particularly nice, but the film generally seems designed to impress the viewer on a visual level. Midway through the film, it becomes clear that Lee photographs with a digital camera while Jessie photographs with old-school film, and that this choice is important and symbolic for both.
Likewise, Garland’s choice of shots and the film’s vibrant colors continually remind audiences that this film is not just about documenting moments, but capturing them well enough to captivate the audience. In some ways, Civil War seems a little nostalgic for an earlier era of journalism and photography. The collapse of the internet seems to have brought news to a point where print journalism dominates television or social media and no one seems to put their news online. It is the most prominently retro aspect of a story that otherwise reflects a possible future.
The film is not about taking sides in any particular current political conflict. This may surprise and disappoint the people to whom it is attracted Civil War because they think they know what it’s about. But it’s also a relief. It’s difficult for message films about current politics not to end up in crude polemics. It is difficult for a historical document to accurately document what happened. That’s the job of journalists like Jessie and Lee – people who are willing to risk their lives to bring stories back from places most people wouldn’t dare go.
And while it feels opportunistic to deliberately frame their story in a new American Civil War – regardless of whether a given viewer sees this narrative choice as timely and edgy or cynical and attention-seeking – the setting still feels far less important than that Vivid, emotional and rich complicated drama about two people, a veteran and a newbie, each doing the same dangerous job in their own way. Civil War Seems like the kind of movie that people mostly talk about for the wrong reasons and without having seen it first. It’s not what these people will think. It’s something better, more current and more exciting – a thoroughly compelling war drama that’s more about people than politics.
Civil War hits theaters April 12th.