Civil War Review: Haunting and Harrowing!

Since Alex Garland’s directorial debut in 2014, he has had a successful streak of fantastic films including Ex Machina, Annihilation and Men (2022). His surreal style of filmmaking and scriptwriting has made him a director to watch, always creating something that, although seems straightforward at first on the surface, bends time and reality to say a lot about the human condition.

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Civil War marks his fourth feature. After hearing about its premise, it was a wonder if Garland was dipping his toes into more “Hollywood” territory despite his continuous ability to surprise audiences. What could have been a traditional “right” vs “left” political thriller, Garland has created a story focusing much more on the role of photojournalism in a “futuristic” political climate that has audiences grappling with the idea of whether we have something to fight for or if we just have the ability to fight.

Another Civil War has broken out in the United States where California and Texas have decided to join together to create the Western Forces, fighting with their own military forces against the rest, particularly the original US government and current president, played by Nick Offerman. War photojournalist Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) and her colleagues Joel (Wagner Moura) and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), along with new recruit and aspiring journalist Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), decide to road trip from New York to Washington D.C with the intention of speaking to the president, who hasn’t given an interview in years.

Alex Garland’s film has a rare ability to display the story at hand without biases towards one side or another, because at the end of the day the film utilizes politics and warfare as a vessel to tell a larger story on the work of the press and journalists. Where it could have been an all out brawl on the obvious political parties that make up the United States and their disdain for one another, Garland decides not to go the cheap route and use his talents elsewhere to show how there are rarely ever “winners” in war.

The visuals and sound design are both haunting and matter of fact as we look through the eyes of jaded journalists who witness pain and violence everyday, using music and editing to show a more “leisurely” workday for them. Cailee Spaeny’s character Jessie is new to the realities of war photojournalism.

As a result, Garland shows the audience how Jessie’s point of view is wildly different from Lee and Joel’s, which is where the atrocious realities of war are shown full force through her eyes. What is even more daunting is the film’s setting is a futuristic look at war, causing the audience to sit and rationalize how everything they are seeing may be the future of the US but is also the present reality to outside countries.

Lee, Joel, and Sammy’s job to be on the front lines and photograph the war in real time allows the film to explore one’s job responsibilities versus their personal morals and ethics, and how blurred this can get. Just as Lee tells Jessie that her job is to just take photos and let the outside world make something of them, this is what Garland does. His outside and nihilistic approach to war reiterates how the world running with their own versions of the story is inevitable but simply putting forth the truth is vital.

It is challenging to watch our main characters, never wanting anything bad to happen to them but also having a level of disdain for their work in the moment, even if there is an importance to it. The larger theme of the separation between our jobs and our own ethics can be attributed to a lot even outside of photojournalism but Garland’s focus on it leaves us floored as to the difference between the subjects in the photo and the intentions of the person behind the camera.

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Civil War is another win for Alex Garland. Stepping out of the film makes us wonder if we will ever get to a point of violence against our neighbors for the sake of protection or power or if we have already reached the point of not even knowing exactly what we are fighting for anymore.

‘Civil War’ Rating – 4/5

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