Civil War

It’s hard to imagine that there will be many films released this year that will create as much discussion as Alex Garland’s fourth film as a director, Civil War. Certainly, it holds the current title of the most debated film of 2024, and that may be true for some time. Garland’s film about a near-future American civil war is provocative, searing, and exceedingly well-crafted, but I suspect many will ask, “What’s the point? What’s it actually trying to say?” In that way, the film can feel slippery due to its choice to be largely apolitical in these exceedingly political times (especially being released in a presidential election year). 

Garland’s choice to have Texas and California be the initial secessionist states is a clever one that might seem to play the “both sides” game. And since the film never explains why the war started or how one of the most conservative states banded together with one of the most liberal (and then pulled in several more states) against the United States government, that might feel like a dodge—although it’s helpful to remember that Russia and the United States were uneasy bedfellows against Hitler during World War II. 

I think Garland gets away with this lack of specificity for two reasons: the film’s breakneck pace and by dropping us onto the battlefield when the war is nearing its end. There almost isn’t enough breathing space in the film’s brutally efficient 109-minute running time to think about the “why?” As well, by bringing us in just before the climax of the war, you almost get the feeling that the fight has been going on for so long that all the characters know the cause, so they don’t need to speak of it. Worse yet, some characters appear to have just gotten used to it, like a habit, as if to say, “I wake up every day and I shoot at people. I’m not even sure why anymore.”

It’s a curious and perplexing choice, but by making the core of Civil War a road movie about four journalists whose only interest is to get the story of the final days, be it through the written word by Wagner Moura’s Joel and Stephen McKinley Henderson’s Sammy, or through image by Kirsten Dunst’s professional photojournalist Lee, and Cailee Spaeny’s fledgling photographer Jessie (all excellent—particularly Dunst in superb no-nonsense form), I’ll be damned if Garland doesn’t pull it off—at least while you’re watching the film. But it does leave you with a lot to wrestle with after the credits roll. 

Some may see Garland’s decision not to even reference either American political party as a chickenshit move, or a stroke of genius that intentionally evades expectations and points you in a different direction that may or may not be of more interest depending on your perspective in these polarizing times. 

Having Nick Offerman (an avowed libertarian in real life) play a thick-waisted, dishonest Commander-in-Chief who has (without explanation) violated the Constitution and is serving his third term would seem to point at a very particular politician of the current day. In fact, it’s difficult to think that Offerman isn’t playing a version of Donald Trump here, but since his performance is essentially a cameo (he is seen only at the very beginning and the very end of the film), how this man came to power appears less critical to Garland than the idea that such a man could, and what his ascension might result in. 

It’s the result of this despotic Presidential figure and the resulting shredding of the country into two separate factions, along with the human cost that comes with it, that makes up the bulk of the film. In this regard, it is very difficult to say that Garland hedges in the slightest. While to a degree almost every war film has the subtext of how the battlefield can change a person, or bring out the dark parts of a person that they didn’t know existed, Civil War leans into the abyss with an often stunning fearlessness that captures the cruelty of war and man’s inhumanity to man like few films of its kind have. 

And by centering the film around journalists who take extraordinary risks to document history in real time, Garland, perhaps incidentally, pays tribute to their courage (which borders on insanity) while also suggesting a distinctly modern lack of interest in how the story unfolds. This is a film that, at least in part, embodies the fierce desire to get the story first—despite the cost, which for each member of the foursome will be grave in one way or another.

I think that Garland’s (and I’m assuming here) position that the reason for the war doesn’t matter as much as the reality of its possibility, even in a country known as a bastion of democracy, one that is currently teetering on the brink in real life. This is the artistic choice he makes. It’s a decision that opens him and his film up to criticism, but I don’t think it’s a choice made out of weakness.

Alex Garland is a filmmaker who operates in bold strokes, whether it’s his consecutive masterpieces, Ex Machina and Annihilation, or his perplexing (if occasionally fascinating) most recent curio, Men. Garland deserves some leeway here. The last thing he’s ever been is soft. On top of that, Civil War is not being distributed by a major studio, but rather the increasingly fascinating indie operation A24, which has successfully positioned itself as the modern-day Miramax–a studio whose very logo on a project signifies a certain level of quality and ambition. A24 has not only excelled on the indie circuit with films like Room, The Witch, and Moonlight, but it has also recently made a significant impact in the mainstream with films like Everything Everywhere All at Once, and The Iron Claw. 

Civil War, in terms of budget ($50 million) and its wide release (like many indie studios, A24 tends to create buzz through limited release before deciding to increase a film’s theatrical accessibility), is a big move for the outlet. Civil War is the film the company chose to take themselves to the “next level” (god, how I hate that cliché, even, as in this case, it applies). 

As such, one might question whether the film was deliberately compromised with a largely apolitical perspective, or whether it simply allowed the filmmaker to follow his muse. Regardless, both the company and Garland deserve the benefit of the doubt. There are roots of their perspective in other films. While Oliver Stone’s Platoon was certainly political (although less so than future projects of his), there was significant time spent by the US soldiers questioning their purpose in Vietnam, as well as why they were there at all. 

Garland certainly goes far beyond that by not even having discussions among his characters about those questions, but I, for one, felt a tenuous spiritual connection to the two films in that regard. A more obvious point of agreement is that both Platoon and Civil War are films fiercely committed to the “war is hell” aesthetic, and both showcase that hell in ways that might just singe your eyebrows while watching. 

In particular, there is a much-discussed five-minute sequence with a too-far-gone character played by Jesse Plemons, who, in the process of creating a mass grave and filling it with countless bodies, detains and questions our intrepid reporters. The scene is harrowing not only for its brutality, but due to the soulless way Plemons (dynamite as always) interrogates the press crew, and how he decides who lives and dies is so oblique that there is no way for the reporters to know what answer may save their lives. 

The outcome of this deadly sequence leads to two scenes, one shot with grace, and then another that delivers a level of grief that borders on madness. In the first, one reporter, wounded and dying, takes in the strange beauty of the floating embers of a forest fire through the window of his shot-up vehicle. In contrast, in the second, another character unloads a silent scream after their partially successful escape, which Garland holds for several extra beats, as if to dare the audience to look away. 

At a time when our own democracy is at risk, while Russia and Ukraine are engaged in war, and Israel and Gaza are embroiled in what seems like an impossible, endless, and recently escalated conflict that has expanded beyond the borders of both, Civil War is very much a movie of the moment. There’s no way to watch a raid on the Capitol (that results in the destruction of the Lincoln Memorial, among other horrors) and not think of January 6, even if the terms of the invasion are surely not mirror images.

Earlier in the film, the reporters are discussing their jobs. Dunst points out that their mission is not to ask questions, but merely to note what happened, and leave those questions to others—those that write the history books, I suspect. 

Film historians will continue to write about the meaning of Civil War for a long time, in articles that will often be in distinct opposition and in conversations that may become heated. In what might be a perverse view, I find that likelihood thrilling. Because Civil War, whether you greatly admire it or hate it (I doubt there will be much in-between), is a movie that is going to matter long after the screen goes dark and the film leaves theaters. 

One thing Civil War does prove is that cinema still matters beyond cinephiles like myself. As hard a ride as the film is, and as perplexing as its point of view (or lack thereof) may be, it is not dismissible. For this alone, I am grateful for its existence. 

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