Alex Garland’s Civil War is a movie about the power of images that, in its best moments, delivers some unforgettable ones of its own. As for what those images convey? That’s unclear.
Set during a civil war that has ripped the U.S. in two, the film follows a group of journalists making their way from New York to D.C. to interview a president who has outstayed his welcome. Throughout, Garland composes searing images of battle and destruction, made even more unsettling when placed in recognizable suburbs, cities and small towns. As a visual spectacle, it’s an often powerful and compelling experience. But as a narrative, it’s frustrating and empty.
Despite being released into a highly contentious political climate where ideas of civil war are too close for comfort, Garland isn’t particularly interested in what might have brought America to such a grim state or examining the country’s very real fractures; in this version, California, Texas and Florida have joined forces and seceded – not the most realistic alliance – and the only information provided about potential reasons is that the president (Nick Offerman) is on his third term, eager to crack down on dissidents. Despite some hints that the president may be a preening blowhard fond of calling the U.S. strategy the best campaign in military history, not enough time is spent with him to suggest whether he’s a stand-in for any real-life political leaders.
And if that’s not the story Garland wants to tell, that’s his prerogative. The problem is that he doesn’t seem to know what story he’s interested in, and his refusal to properly build the world or give depth to his characters means Civil War is largely two hours of provocative imagery and abandoned ideas.
The writer-director has elsewhere called the film a love letter to journalists, and Garland seems most interested in observing his characters as they risk their lives to document the war. At the center is Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a world-famous photographer who has spent her career capturing atrocities around the world and is now watching her own home nation unravel. Dunst gives a solid performance as a person whose experiences witnessing the worst of humanity have ground her into a prickly, weary and emotionless nub, keeping others at bay and only focused on getting the job done.
Unfortunately, that includes the audience. Because while Dunst is good in the role, there’s no character beneath the surface. Beyond the fact that Lee says her parents are back home ignoring the war and others say she’s the world’s best photojournalist – although I don’t believe we ever see any of her printed photos – Garland either does too good of a job keeping her walled off or just didn’t bother to fill in any specifics of the character (and given the other complaints I have about the film, I suspect it’s the latter). There’s no sense of who Lee was before war ground her down, what she might have left behind back home or what she hopes for when she finally gets to hang up her camera. A brief interlude in a small-town dress shop gives her a minute of levity, but Garland doesn’t clue us in to whether it’s a chance for her to briefly be the person she was before the war or just a respite from the stress.
The rest of the characters fare worse, evidenced by the fact that while IMDB tells me they all have names, I couldn’t recall any of them when I was walking out of the theater. They’re an assemblage of types with pre-ordained arcs. There’s the reporter who gets a rush out of heading into danger and the old writer whose dialogue sounds like rejected article copy. And if you can accurately guess whether the prickly Lee will warm up to the charismatic young photographer who joins up with them, congratulations: you’ve seen a movie. The film’s episodic structure follows them as they head from town to town, briefly stopping in a small village untouched by the war for a moment of joy (the structure mirrors Garland’s script for the much better 28 Days Later very closely). They ostensibly want an interview with the president, but there’s no sense of urgency – even though it’s hinted several times that these are the final days of the war. They venture into towns, tag along to observe some fighting or talk to locals, and then move on, growing or changing only because that’s what the plot beats dictate.
The emptiness of the characters would be forgivable if Garland used them as types through which to tell a larger story about what rips nations apart or how war transforms and destroys communities. But there’s no allegory here; the dystopian American setting is just that, a setting. There’s no sense of a larger history of what destroyed the country or how citizens have fared. Did a fascist ruler upend democracy? Was there an ideological split? Terrorism? Is it just part of America’s conflict-driven history? Have regular Americans been conscripted or are militias rising up? What’s the deal with this president?
Like I said, I don’t need a direct comparison to our modern-day political conflicts. That would probably lead to a cheaper and more exploitative movie. But without any world-building or a solid point of view, Civil War feels narratively cheap in its own way, exploiting America’s current conflicts and fears without offering any perspective on them or on our nation’s propensity for conflict and violence. There’s one brief scene featuring Jesse Plemons as a backwoods vigilante – or is he a soldier? It’s never clear – that suggests a racial element to the conflict, and it’s the closest Garland comes to making a statement. Plemons’ character holds the diverse group at gunpoint and asks what kind of “American” they are. It seems to be a moment to highlight what some of the factions might be in this new America or give an insight into the character; but no, it’s just a reversal to show that the character is just an out-and-out racist and elicit gasps from the audience by inflicting sudden violence.
At one point, Lee says that photojournalists don’t tell people what to think about the photos they take; they just observe and let people make up their mind. And that seems to be Garland’s approach in this movie – we’re shown the reporters and photographers at work, and we’re invited to be just as dispassionate as they are. But Garland’s logic is flawed. In our reactions to journalism, we respond and form opinions based on context, history and our personal backgrounds. But when a fiction film plunges viewers into a world with no greater context or rules, there isn’t much to form an opinion on, aside from the thoughts that people are cruel. Civil War doesn’t bring any new ideas to the table, and remains a hollow experience. Even if Garland wanted to keep the focus on the journalists, positioning them on different ends of whatever ideological spectrums are at play might have added more texture.
Which is a shame, because Garland is an often smart screenwriter who plays with big ideas. His scripts for 28 Days Later and Sunlight are genre masterpieces, and Ex Machina is a fascinating science fiction film. He’s always been aloof, but even if his films were emotionally flat, they were bursting with ideas. And he’s a talented technical filmmaker. The shot composition – often frozen in time to showcase what the characters’ cameras capture – is effective and dramatic. Garland knows how to stage a gripping action sequence; the movie’s final 20 minutes feature a raid on the White House that rattles the theater. But the movie is too emotionally and intellectually inert for the sequence to truly thrill or for the images of violence in one of our most hallowed buildings to resonate. It somehow moves quickly and just sits there at the same time. Which is as good a summation as any for this movie.