CIVIL WAR

Early in Civil Wars runtime Kirsten Dunst’s Lee Smith addresses the emotional, apolitical disconnect she appears to have with the war she is chronicling. She states “Once you start asking those questions you can't stop. So we don't ask. We record so other people ask”.

This sentiment seems to run through Civil War as it is deliberately vague as to the intricacies of the war.  Deliberately vague as to which side certain characters are fighting for. Deliberately vague as to how certain States allied, and why others turned upon each other.

And this should be the first clue that this is not a war film.

It is actually, in parts at least, a road trip movie, as we follow Lee, Joel (Wagner Moura), Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) as they attempt to travel across a war torn USA from New York to Washington, with the aim of interviewing Nick Offermans dictatorial president.

As with any road trip movie they meet a whole cast of characters along the way, allowing for little vignettes of life and war to filter through to us. We see those who are trying to ignore it. Those revelling in it. Those horrified by it. And those benefitting from it.

Some of these meets provide genuinely funny moments. Where others provide moments so shocking and tense that its audience will struggle to take breath. 

And all the while our characters just observe and photograph. Recording so that other people ask the questions.

And as many of the photographs are taken we get a brief freeze frame of the shot. Each one presented without comment. Each one daring the audience to question it. Daring the audience the think about what they are seeing.

Because this is not a film about war. It is a film about journalism. About advocating for a free press that generates discussion rather than division. One that allows its audience to ask the questions, rather than pretending that it alone holds the all the answers. 

News providers that actually provide the news, rather than the glorified fanzines that we are often treated to today, skewing things to fit their own political ideologies.

And Alex Garland should be commended for packaging all of this in a mainstream thriller

I have heard some criticisms that the film does not explain how the war came to pass. That it does not explain why. 

But to me “why?” is a redundant question, because we are currently living it. The “why?” is happening around us. It is happening as you read this. 

Civil War is such a frighteningly plausible vision of our near future that it does not need to bother answering how it got there. So frighteningly plausible that despite not straying into traditional horror it may be Garlands scariest film yet. 

It is shocking. At times funny, and at others utterly horrifying. There are moments so breathless that the near full cinema I saw it on were completely silent, and totally transfixed on what was happening in front of them.

I urge you to book a ticket to see Civil War. It might not be the anti-war film people are expecting, but it is something more important. A film which might actually generate some legitimate political discussion. 

Not division, but discussion.

Alex Garland has said that he is stepping away from directing for the time being, but I hope he returns to it soon. His four movie filmography has set him aside and a creative and exciting voice in the world of film making, and his absence would be Hollywoods, and our, loss.