Civil War a stunning piece of storytelling
Theatrical movie review - A24 - war drama
I have been skeptical of Alex Garland's Civil War since the first trailer dropped. Garland isn’t one of my favorite writers, and the subject matter felt too incendiary at this time. But this wasn't the movie I was expecting.
Four journalists are heading from New York to Washington, D.C., as the Western Forces are making their way to the Capitol to depose the President (Nick Offerman), who is in his self-appointed third term. Veteran war photographer Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and Reuters reporter Joel (Wagner Moura) want to interview the president, and they are joined by Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a long-time reporter, and Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a young photographer who hopes to learn from her hero. They travel through a war-torn American landscape, hoping to survive long enough to be able to tell the story.
This movie is a stunning piece of cinema and storytelling. Garland manages to tell a story that is thought-provoking and challenging on multiple levels, creating characters that feel intensely real in the midst of this fictional world.
The performances are all top-notch. The interplay between Dunst, Moura, Spaeny, and Henderson is fantastic, with each of them maintaining a detached professionalism that breaks at precisely the right moments. The standout, however, is assuredly Jesse Plemons, who is absolutely terrifying during his brief time on screen.
This movie is largely non-partisan. Not in a “very fine people on both sides” way, but that the sides don't feel particularly tied to one political ideology or another. While some may find that cowardly, couching it in partisan terms would have made the story feel more like a caricature of war rather than showing the pain and devastation that armed conflict brings. This gave the impression of a movie about a war in America rather than the American Civil War imagery that some partisan hacks want to present citizens with.
The sound design in this film is impressive, fully immersing you in the events taking place on screen. The filming is beautiful and jarring, with lovely shots of the countryside, littered with the corpses of those fallen victim to the war. The soundtrack also adds to the unease, jumping between genres and adding needle drops at unexpected times.
Garland's work always impresses me on a technical level but leaves me cold when the film ends. I didn't feel good when Civil War ended, but there is no denying that this film had an impact on me as a viewer. War combatants always believe that they are the good guys and the other side is the bad guys, which allows everyone to commit atrocities in the name of their perceived rightness. What people feel after watching this will be informed by their own experiences and beliefs. More than anything, this movie made me thankful for those who do the work to remind us of the reality of war and that the blood-lust of those with power is often paid for by those without power.
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It was beautiful and heart wrenching.