Civil War: Alex Garland’s Dystopian Tale of a Besieged America Both Thrilling and Terrifying

By Chris Knight

Rating: A

There is a failing at the heart of Civil War. One might even call it narrative cowardice. And it comes down to not knowing what political party is represented by President Nick Offerman. (If he has a character name I didn’t catch it.)

One thing contemporary politicians can be relied upon to wear on their sleeves is their affiliation. It’s hard to imagine a civil war in America without party politics. (A real John Lennon koan, that.)

More generally, the movie imagines that the schism that is ripping America apart runs along geographical lines and not political ones. California allied with Texas? Unless it’s a culinary bond I’m not buying it. The Florida Alliance? Did they secede over golf courses and seniors’ benefits? It’s as if you made a war movie about an attack on Mongolia by Irkutsk. Someone’s been playing too much Risk.

Now, to be fair to writer-director Alex Garland, he has addressed these concerns in interviews, noting that he chose to ally Texas and California precisely because they are such unlikely bedfellows. The enemy of my enemy and all that.

It’s also worth noting that this is not really a story about a war. It is first a love letter to journalists and their craft; second, a nifty action-adventure tale; and third (in a photo finish), a political allegory. I’m fine with that order, so let’s move on.

“We record so other people can ask.” That’s Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a grizzled war photographer who finds herself unwittingly and unwillingly in the role of mentor and sometimes mother figure to Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a 23-year-old wannabe who still shoots on film — ah, Gen Z and their retro tech! — developing pictures on the road with chemicals that she keeps on her person, explaining that they work best at body temperature.

Lee’s other companions: Joel (Wagner Moura), an adrenaline junkie hellbent on getting an interview with President Nick, who hasn’t granted one in 14 months, and is rumoured to shoot anyone who tries. And Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), whom I never saw do anything reporterly but whose intuition is infallible. When he says, “Every instinct in me says this is death,” you’d better pay attention.

Together they’re heading from New York City to Washington, D.C., a trek Google Maps will tell you can be made 229 miles, but which will take them 857 thanks to road closures (no more I-95) and something existential having happened to Philadelphia.

Along the way they’ll encounter odd, surreal moments of placidity, police action and Jesse Plemons, the last in a chilling scene in which he’s armed and asking the questions, while no one else can figure out the right answers. (Now that M. Emmet Walsh is no longer with us, I’m going to take a page from Roger Ebert’s playbook and declare Plemons the actor who elevates everything he touches.)

But that’s the fog of war, expertly imagined by Garland and his regular cinematographer Rob Hardy, who also shot Mission: Impossible — Fallout. When you’re making a movie about war photographers, it had better be both pretty and gritty, and Civil War threads that needle adroitly.

There are moments of high contrast both visual and aural, not to mention comedic. (There’s a great gag about the value of the Canadian dollar in this imagined future.)

And the musical choices are inspired. Garland eschews most modern melodies in favour of a sliding scale of throwbacks, but never what you’d expect. No “Fortunate Son,” “Eve of Destruction” or “For What It’s Worth” here.

Instead, we get the likes of “Say No Go” from 1989 by De La Soul; Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” from 1979, a song The Guardian once declared “hangs between hope and nihilism;” and “Lovefingers” by Silver Apples, a 1968 release which has been described as folk vocals sung over acid-house beats, as if the band had taken so much LSD they travelled into the future.

There’s also no talk of fake news, Russian interference, or stolen elections, although we do hear briefly that the President is into his third term of office, an unconstitutional trick that Donald J. Trump has boasted he’d like to try. In any case, it bears repeating that Civil War is not about the road to conflict, but rather the potholed middle — we’re in 1862 territory, not 1859.

With its juxtaposition of the types of images we’re used to seeing in other corners of the world — roadside refugees, “Build America” on a rusty railcar, a crashed helicopter outside a burned-out JCPenney — Civil War has the ability to provoke thought and sometimes more than a little dread.

It’s not the way most people would imagine such a conflict looking in modern America, but that sense of unreality is surely part of the point.

Who could have imagined Rwanda, Sarajevo or Ukraine unfolding as they did, even five years before hostilities began? Civil War is both premium entertainment and a cautionary tale.

Viewers would be advised to pay attention to both fronts.

Civil War. Directed by Alex Garland. Starring Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, and Wagner Moura. In theatres April 12.