‘Civil War’: For correspondents in a torn country with echoes of today, any side is the wrong side
Film Review
Alex Garland has always been thematically clear in his films. His first two directorial efforts, “Ex Machina” (2015) and “Annihilation” (2018), plumbed creationism and doom, while “Men” (2022) donned the veneer of horror as it wrestled with toxic masculinity and misogyny. Here Garland shifts to the more immediate and less fantastical with this loose-lensed scrutiny of journalism, namely its relevance and the ethics of those plying it. Sure, the civil war of the title is happening across the United States, but it’s vague as to why; all we know is that the Western Forces – a two-star alliance with their own, more spartan rendering of the ol’ red, white and blue – consists of seceded states Texas and California, and that Florida is a wild card trying to pull the Carolinas in to some kind of something or other. It’s a MacGuffin wrapped inside an enigma for certain, but Red and Blue states aligning is a bit of a stretch. Given the premise, folks are going to want to reflect on the nastiness here and now and how we move on, but “Civil War” is not that film. It takes a while to work that out and get on the page with Garland, a more-than-capable writer (“28 Days Later,” “Never Let Me Go”) and inherently immersive filmmaker.
“Civil War” opens with journalists in New York City recording mob unrest and the efforts of a bristling police presence trying to tamp it down. Again, the who and why isn’t explained, but given the immediacy of the scene, Garland and his crew transport us beyond our want-to-knows as veteran war photographer Lee Miller (Kirstin Dunst) snaps away at the post-explosion carnage of a car bomb. Trying to tag along is Jessie (Carlee Spaeny, the apple of Elvis’ eye in “Priscilla”) a Lee Miller wannabe who shoots on old-school film and would have been digitized herself if it weren’t for Lee pushing her out of the bomb blast. Like the punchy western journos in “Welcome to Sarajevo” (1997) and “The Year of Living Dangerously” (1982), the correspondents regroup in a hotel, drink scotch, milk each other for scoops and discuss the next hot spot locale to pursue a story. Lee and her pen man Joel (Wagner Moura) want to score an interview with the power-clinging, third-term president (Nick Offerman) before D.C. is beset. Jessie weasels her way in, as does Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), an older political reporter from the Times looking to get to the front line in Charlottesville. The winding 800 miles to D.C. (can’t go down the main coastal roads) is filled with strange moments: a vintage boutique in a Southern hamlet seemingly untouched by the conflict, a gas stop where alleged looters hang from rafters awaiting “trial,” meticulous mass graves and plenty of skirmishes where not many seem to know what they are fighting for or who’s on whose side. “I’m just shooting at a guy who’s shooting at me,” one gentleman in camouflage and punk-dyed hair offers as he tries to suss out a sniper.
At the end of the not-too-golden bricked road, Garland stages a phenomenally choreographed siege of Washington that’s as heartbreaking as it is breathtaking. Through it all he digs into the “objective indifference” of journalists – the professional tenet of getting the story and being impartial. It’s a cold and effective mirror that raises begging questions, and others more practical and immediate: If powers are to fall, will the organizations they file with still exist (the Times and Reuters) and if so, shouldn’t they become freelancers for foreign press such as the BBC or The Guardian? Then there’s the matters of personal preservation and the reasons for the civil war that are never discussed, which makes you see more notorious touch points in our recent past, namely Jan. 6 and the Proud Boys. To be clear, the Western Forces are no liberating army – or at least not one I’d want to be liberated by, as they shoot first and ask few questions. When they do ask, if your answers aren’t right, you’re dead. Twice as dead if you’re not white.
It’s a slippery yet provocative slope. Some might call it manipulative stoking of fears without owning it, and they’d be right. The film also falters with Jessie; she’s as shallow as dew mist – an amalgam of parts with nothing human to grab on to, and Spaeny feels miscast. Thankfully that all fades in the rearview as things ramp up en route to D.C. As a visionary behind a pen or a lens, Garland has a penchant for lawless dystopia that translates well here, and frighteningly so. The war in the backyard holds our eyes and our minds even if the themes offered fail to fully crystallize in the billowing smoke of the distant hills.