Movie Review: CIVIL WAR

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: April 12th, 2024 / 01:04 AM

Rating: R
Stars: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Maura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Nelson Lee, Evan Lai, Nick Offerman, Jesse Plemons
Writer: Alex Garland
Director: Alex Garland
Distributor: A24
Release Date: April 12, 2024

Writer/director Alex Garland’s CIVIL WAR depicts a second intra-state conflict within the U.S., but it comes at present-day politics from an oblique angle. Take away the familiar scenery and a couple of musings by the characters, and this tale of combat photojournalists could be set pretty much anywhere that heavily armed people are fighting with one another.

At the White House, the U.S. President (Nick Offerman) is rehearsing a speech about the state of the war. This is juxtaposed with scenes of military and police violence against civilians.

On the streets of New York City, veteran photojournalist Lee Hill (Kirsten Dunst) is taking pictures of a clash between armed forces. In the course of this, she rescues young amateur photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) from getting blown up by a rocket strike.

Jessie, it turns out, is an aspiring combat photographer herself. She idolizes Lee and tracks her down to the war correspondents’ hotel where she’s staying. Lee’s colleague Joel (Wagner Maura) is determined to go to Washington, D.C., to get an interview with the President, even though the government treats journalists as enemies of the state.

Lee and Joel’s old friend Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who works for a rival publication, persuades them to give him a ride as far as Charlottesville, Virginia, where he plans to embed himself with the Western Forces (one of the groups opposing the government). In the morning, Lee discovers to her displeasure that Joel has agreed to let Jessie tag along with them.

CIVIL WAR thereafter gives us occasional onscreen notices of how far we are from D.C.: “857 miles,” “289 miles,” and so on. Our quartet, in their banged-up car with “PRESS” in big letters on the sides, travels over empty roads and roads filled with abandoned cars, through refugee camps, active battle zones, towns that seem far away from the crisis, and places where people are behaving savagely without evident fealty to any army. The sound of gunfire has seldom been so alarming, and the skirmishes feel like suitably life-and-death encounters.

CIVIL WAR is in these respects a first-rate war movie, solidly conveying the terror of what happens when human beings set out to kill one another on a mass scale. We viscerally comprehend both the fear and the exhilaration of what the photojournalists are doing (and even get a bonus lesson on how to develop film on the road).

While CIVIL WAR in some respects is reminiscent of movies about the Vietnam War, having its main characters be noncombatants helps us focus on the sense of absolute chaos that would be diminished by elements like commanding officers and battle strategies. It also makes them immediately more vulnerable, as they’re not armed.

Some of the most frightening sequences involve small groups. A scene with Jesse Plemons as a man quietly obsessed with who is American and who isn’t rates as one of the most horrifying of the year.

The actors are all excellent. Dunst makes Lee as tough and exhausted as it seems circumstances would make her. Maura (Pablo Escobar in NARCOS) has easy charm and great emotional depth. Henderson is full of wisdom, quiet humor and practical resignation. Spaeny conveys innocence, determination and a capacity for shock that all make us care for her. Nelson Lee and Evan Lai give superb supporting performances.

Where CIVIL WAR falters somewhat is in the lack of connection between its title and what we’re actually watching. Apart from the fact that everyone is speaking English, the protagonists could be covering any conflict anywhere. Yes, lip service is paid to the fact that nobody can fully believe this is happening on American soil and a few folks mention killing former schoolmates. Lee even voices being understandably disturbed that she cannot leave this war zone and go “home.” But by now, nobody seems to have any qualms about shooting at and bombing their erstwhile fellow citizens. The moral conundrums about “civil war” are not part of the film’s essence.

Politics are in the background, though by having one side friendly to the press and one side hostile to the media, we can broadly guess who is meant to be whom. A bigger question is how filmmaker Garland decided that the Western Forces should be an alliance of California and Texas. Since this is announced near the beginning, it’s not so much a spoiler as a puzzler. Is this supposed to be ironic? Is CIVIL WAR supposed to be further into the future than it looks? How did this happen? The upshot is that we spend much of CIVIL WAR wondering if we’re going to get some kind of explanation, but it doesn’t come.

CIVIL WAR has a lot of power as a convincing look at warfare and those who report on it. It just never gives us the existential stakes of an actual civil war.

Follow us on Twitter at ASSIGNMENT X
Like us on Facebook at ASSIGNMENT X

Latest Buzz

Movie Review: CIVIL WAR

Convincing depiction of combat photographers

Article Source: Assignment X
Article: Movie Review: CIVIL WAR

Related

Related Posts:

Leave a Comment

Assignment X Poll

Newsletter subscription status

Latest Buzz

Movie Review: CIVIL WAR

Convincing depiction of combat photographers

Article Source: Assignment X Article: Movie Review: CIVIL WAR

Related

Related Posts:

Leave a Comment

Assignment X Poll

Article Source: Assignment X
Article: Movie Review: CIVIL WAR