Civil War

There are few filmmakers from whom I’d give this premise the time of day. The idea of a story imagining the possibility of a Second American Civil War is exhausting, especially during a presidential election year. It even feels a bit cynical, like it’s trying to capitalize on the terror so many Americans experienced on January 6, 2021, the closest we come to the powder keg of post-Tea Party politics finally igniting. That’s not to say it can’t be done: it just must be done carefully. You need to have something to say, something which requires this intensely political setting, or at least which is greatly reinforced by it.

Which is partially why I was so interested, even as the marketing materials didn’t grab me. I don’t think of Alex Garland as a particularly political filmmaker. Men is the closest exception, but that concerns gender politics, not the broader political landscape or partisanship. So what would be his angle? What is it he was burning to say about modern political discourse and toxicity? What is afforded by the upsetting image of highways covered in abandoned cars?

I’m not entirely sure.

Which isn’t to claim he has nothing to say. Just that he seems more interested in CW II as a setting than an idea, so his thoughts aren’t about the nature of the conflict or America itself. Well, apart from just generally that this could happen. Which does of course tell us something about his outlook: it’s bleak, and Garland sees things getting much, much worse before they have any chance of getting better.

Our understanding of the conflict unfolds through veteran war photographer Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) and her driver Joel (Wagner Moura) departing for DC from NYC in an attempt to interview the POTUS (Nick Offerman) before the Western Forces of Texas and California (WF) get there. Hearing this, their old friend and colleague Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) hitches a ride to the front lines in Charlottesville. Then, just before leaving, Lee meets Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a young aspiring war photographer, who pushes her way into the crew, eager for her first real taste of the conflict. Together, they travel down the East Coast, witnessing what this conflict has done to the country and its people.

That tour does little to define the shape of the conflict in any way. We open on a pretty effective scene of POTUS practicing and then delivering a speech declaring that the WF just suffered a notable defeat. Shortly thereafter, we witness a suicide bombing during protests in NYC, and journalists discussing how the WF plans to invade DC on July 4th. Despite the mentions of the front-lines being in Virginia, we see large-scale, prolonged fighting near Pittsburgh, and skirmishes everywhere else. Although the fighting seems to be internal, there’s a pretty harrowing scene in which we see a calm but threatening militiaman (Jesse Plemons) execute some non-Americans simply because they’re not American.

Garland is completely uninterested in worldbuilding, content to tell us how it is now, regardless of how we got here. Even then, he shies away from making clear distinctions or ideological points. There’s no discussion of what the Western Forces believe or stand for, or people’s opinions of them, save for the tossed off line that they’ll likely turn on each other once they depose the POTUS. We do learn the POTUS is some sort of authoritarian, as he’s has disbanded the FBI and is in his third term, implying he engaged in some form extra-Constitutional power grab. That being said, we never get any indication if or how this plays into the WF’s grievances. Instead of depicting two conflicting ideologies which drive their adherents to disgusting lengths, thus condemning all sides (even those not depicted), he strips them of all beliefs, thus rendering them hollow symbols.

Which isn’t to say we need this dystopian future to be grafted onto current political divisions, nor that it’s impossible to come up with a bunch of scenarios as to how this works. However, by leaving the possibilities so wide open, he’s leaning on the audience to come up with their own reasons for complex plot mechanics, yet giving us little to go on. The most you get from the text is the somewhat trite “Liberals and conservatives aren’t so different, so of course they could form an uneasy alliance”. Which, fine, that’s something, regardless of your feelings on it. But that idea isn’t developed at all, explicitly or implicitly, so it fades into the background and leaves little impression.

By picking such an incendiary topic, but refusing to really look at it, we’re forced to think deeply about why. This movie isn’t anywhere near inflammatory enough to be trading in sensationalism, as most people will walk away simply wondering “What the hell was that?” So what’s he getting at?

He seems most concerned with the role of photojournalism in the modern world, and how it flattens and distorts conflicts abroad by showing what that looks like at home. Any time Lee or Jessie take a photo, we hear a shutter sound, then the frame blinks and squares off with a silent image of the scene they captured displayed for a couple seconds. These range from soldiers in a firefight to a downed and abandoned helicopter to dying combatants. They are all horrifying, painting a stark and disturbing picture of the events of this conflict. But they convey absolutely nothing about the conflict itself, save for the brutality. The characters never even discuss what it all means.

Instead, we get some conversations about what it takes to be a war photographer, the occupational hazards, and the risk of getting involved in the very events you’re covering. Jessie is a useful device to get Lee’s views on the philosophy of the profession. Most memorably after Lee photographs a couple looters who were strung up and tortured at a gas station, with their captor posing in front of them. The very next shot, we’re back in the car, with Jessie asking Lee if the reason those men were killed was because of their presence. To which Lee responds that you can’t think like that or it will ruin you, conveniently side-stepping the actual question. This illustrates the dichotomy: you can’t document a conflict without being there, but your very presence can influence that conflict.

Which could itself be a useful and interesting insight, but we never see the impact of their documentation. In fact, early on we see Lee attempting to upload her pictures of the aftermath of the suicide bombing, but the internet cuts out before she can finish. We have to wonder if what she captures gets through at all. We know she’s somewhat famous, at least within the profession, due to Jessie recognizing her face, but it could easily be due to her previous work abroad. So does what she and her colleagues are doing here actually matter?

There are a few glimpses at what the knowledge of the fighting does to normal people. For one, in dialog we learn that both Lee and Jessie’s parents are trying to live their lives as if none of this is happening, burying their heads in the sand. And when they roll into an idyllic small town somewhere between Pittsburgh and Charlottesville, we see what that looks like in practice. Everything seems like an average suburb: kids strolling home on untouched sidewalks, cute downtown, functioning electricity. They are blissfully unaware of the world outside, not 100 miles away. Well, not unaware: a shopkeeper (Melissa Saint-Amand) informs them they absolutely know, they just want no part in the horrors, and so do whatever they can to ignore it. Thus, far from Lee’s goal of educating the public and trying to warn them about what could happen, the work of her and her colleagues is instead causing people to shrink further into their own bubbles. Which seems like a fair (if obvious) commentary on modern journalism, just one that has a hard time really landing.

The filmmaking here is quite outstanding, bolstered by viewing it in IMAX. There are some pretty intense visuals, and a few effective bits of intercutting actual documentary footage with a medium close-up to imply memory of the terrors of war. But I must say, I was most impressed by the sound design. Early on, there’s the way the suicide bombing and its aftermath are handled. I already talked about the shutter followed by dead silence for the photographs. And of course, the fighting. If the firefights in and around major US cities wasn’t enough, the sounds of gunshots echoing hauntingly off concrete and two factions shoot at each other between government builds is. There’s some quality to those gunshots which felt more visceral than any time I’ve heard them in a movie before. There’s no satisfying pop, no sense of authority to it. Maybe it was all the usage of a rifle sound effect when the characters were in tight quarters. The hugeness of it felt inappropriate for the space in a way that was deliberately disorienting and a bit scary.

The music was…odd. The score itself was quite good, doing a great job conveying the dread of the situation, often employing a low drone as the underlying foundation and topping it with gentle, mournful guitar picking. But the needle drops chosen struck an odd tone, with pop music played to accompany the extreme images. I think most strongly of a particular montage somewhere around the middle of the film, in which we see the aftermath of an urban battle largely in slow motion, set to De La Soul’s “Say No Go”. The intent seems to be highlighting the horror by contrast, showcasing the absurdity of what we’re seeing, and commenting on the way the our politicians sometimes glorify military conflict by playing the type of energetic anthems they prefer. There were a few times when it fit perfectly, and others when it felt like a total miscalculation. That being said, it definitely achieved its goal of ensuring you could never misinterpret the movie as pro-war.

As for the performances, I don’t really have much to say. Everyone was good, but no one wowed me. Even Dunst, who I believe to be a horrendously underrated actress (see Melancholia and The Power of the Dog for just two remarkable examples), just does a pretty good job here. She embodies war hardened pretty damn well, and hits the emotional change as we march towards the ending quite believably, but the flatness of her character means she doesn’t super stand out.

It’s a shame that Garland has said that after this film, he intends to take a step back from directing for a bit, and focus on writing. He’s crafted some of my favorite sci-fi films of the past decade, so I’m sad to see him go out (for the time being) on such a wobbly note. This was a big swing that ultimately didn’t connect, but I appreciate his attempt to move forward as a filmmaker. That being said, he wrote some of my favorite sci-fi movies of the previous decade: see 28 Days Later and Sunshine. So with any luck, he’ll return to constructing the worlds he’s most adept at, deep and philosophical sci-fi tales which force us to think about our place in the world, and leave the spectacle to someone else.