‘Ex Machina’ director Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ is a provocative dive into a divided America
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Is “Civil War” a dangerous film to release in another potentially contested election year? I guess we’ll find out. Zeitgeist-riding writer-director Alex Garland (“Men”) this time takes on the topical, dystopian subject of an America so divided that a modern-day civil war has broken out.
In the opening scenes of this $50 million effort from indie specialist A24, a decidedly Trumpian President (Nick Offerman) mutters some phrases about “illegal secessionist governments” and “pockets of resistance” before appearing before the cameras. It seems that “the Western Forces,” comprising an unlikely alliance of Texas and California, are on the march, heading east with their soldiers, jets, and tanks and getting ready to storm Washington, D.C. Is the Grim Future staring us in the face?
Instead of delving into what differentiates the warring factions (e.g., Is it a war of Red MAGA vs. the Blue forces?), the “Civil War” screenplay by Englishman Garland evades and introduces us to a group of journalists vying for the best place from which to report the war, which, lord knows, they probably helped to start. Obviously, that place is the nation’s capital.
But they can’t get there straight from New York City, where the press are gathered. They must drive around to West Virginia. Journalists are considered “enemy combatants,” so why would you ride in a car with the word PRESS painted on it? In the large SUV are famed photo-journalist Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), her reporter colleague Joel (Wagner Moura), a respected older writer named Sammy (the great Stephen McKinley Henderson), and young stranger Jessie (Cailee Spaeny of “Priscilla”).
The newcomer is a camera buff who worships Lee and wants to see how she works to learn at her feet, an odd plot twist when there is so much “other” story to tell. American city dwellers beg soldiers for water, an uneasy evocation of the current war in Gaza. The FBI has been “disbanded.” For some reason, $300 Canadian is enough to convince some heavily-armed good old boys to fill the SUV’s voluminous tank plus two Jerry cans. That almost sounds like a bargain. A burned-out chopper sits askew in front of a boarded-up JC Penney. Jessie’s desire to learn to be a photojournalist from her hero in the midst of all this chaos, gunfire, and bloodshed seems quaint and beside the point. Lee points out that the young woman first needs to learn to stay alive. When Garland isn’t conjuring Alfonso Cuaron’s similarly dystopian 2006 P.D. James’ adaptation “Children of Men” or TV’s “The Walking Dead,” he’s got the car and its inhabitants pinned down by sniper fire a la “Full Metal Jacket.”
In a poetic moment, Garland reminds us that whatever horrors are being perpetrated, wildflowers still bloom. Jesse Plemons, Dunst’s husband in real life (and an FBI agent in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon”), is terrifying as a bloody-handed, generic soldier preparing a mass grave and wantonly shooting unarmed civilians after asking, “What kind of an American are you?” Well, punk?
For people in the who-what-where-and-when business, our film’s lead characters do not dwell much on the news. As Jessie develops her skills and grace under fire, Lee has a breakdown, her anxiety levels rising to hysteria. The shootouts have a visceral ugliness. The final siege of the White House is brilliantly staged and makes you wish “Civil War” had been a more conventional war movie instead of a strangely beside-the-point tale. “Olympus” has never fallen like this.
Dunst’s Lee is both a maternal mentor and a haunted, burnt-out case out of a Graham Greene novel, and Dunst is her usual spellbinding self. But Spaeny’s role doesn’t have enough meat on the bone. The spooky score is by Garland regulars Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury. Garland, whose credits as writer-director also include the AI/female empowerment fable “Ex Machina” (2014) and climate change fantasy “Annihilation” (2018), seems to live inside our doom-laden heads. That’s the much-covered tune “Dream Baby Dream” by Suicide over the end credits. Dream, baby.
‘Civil War’
Rating: R for strong violence, gruesome images, and profanity.
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Nelson Lee
Writer-director: Alex Garland
Running Time: 1 hour 49 minutes
Where to Watch: AMC Boston Common, AMC Causeway, AMC South Bay, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport
Grade: B
Boston Movie News 