Review: Civil War (2024)
Despite strenuously avoiding taking sides, or even saying what the sides stand for, this action film about journalism in war comes down on the side of fascism
Civil War (2024)
Written and directed by Alex Garland
Having seen the trailer for “Civil War” about eight times in the last two months, I wasn't particularly interested in seeing what looked like the usual shoot-em-up, blow-em-up action movie. The appeal seemed to be viewers’ morbid curiosity about that an armed rebellion by parts of the U.S. military might look like. Movies have been made on less substantial premises. But I wasn't looking forward to what I expected to be veiled political messages, even though the forces opposing the established U.S., “the so-called Western Forces of Texas and California,” as President Nick Offerman says in the trailer, cannot possibly exist.
Since its release, “Civil War” has been both criticized and praised for not taking sides in the current political conflict between progressives and right-wing conservatives. But if you think about it, the movie had to do this. If it presented either a liberal or a conservative side as the righteous one, the movie would be seen as a political diatribe. So combining Texas and California in one rebellious force is actually brilliant, because the rebellious force in the movie couldn’t possibly represent any real group.
In this alternate universe, we find this rebellion fully underway, citing only one incident, “the Antifa massacre,” as a precursor. Otherwise there’s no attempt at backstory or explanation of how we got here; the movie simply starts in medias res at a clash between protesters and cops in New York City. A middle-aged blonde woman named Lee (Kirsten Dunst) is photographing the chaos. No sooner is she approached by a young woman who looks about 16, who says she idolizes Lee and wants to be a war photographer like her, than a suicide bomber sprints past them, and the experienced combat journalist Lee intuits what’s happening and pulls her fan to cover a moment before the bomb goes off.
By the next day, the young woman, named Jessie and played by Anna Paquin lookalike Cailee Spaeny, has attached herself to Lee and two print journalists, veteran Joel (Wagner Moura) and elderly, handicapped Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson). They pile into a car and head for trouble. “The back seat is both a kindergarten and an old people’s home,” snaps Lee, exaggerating, but also correct. The line suggests the possibility that this could have been a comedy.
The movie becomes a road trip. On the way to Washington DC, through a dystopic Pennsylvania and West Virginia to avoid the front lines, young Jessie gains experience not only taking pictures under fire but also negotiating a war zone full of armed fighters. Some of the armed men are in civilian clothes, some in combat uniforms, but neither the characters nor the viewer can tell which side of the war the men on -- if any. Some of them are simply settling scores: one redneck has strung up another man in a car wash who didn’t talk to him in high school.
Centrally, there’s the incident seen in the movie’s trailer, where some camo-clad men waylay the group and interrogate them as to “What kind of Americans are you?” There seems to be no right answer to the question, which is never resolved; these armed men never identify themselves either. The smirking redheaded militiaman is played by the actor Jessie Plemons – he also stood out in a supporting role in “Killers of the Flower Moon” -- and though his character doesn’t have a name and only appears in this one scene, his is the most powerful performance in the film.
So in most of the movie, viewers don’t see the armies of either side. By never explaining how the war started or why Texas and California have seceded, or even showing personal behavior by individual soldiers, the filmmakers deny the audience the ability to pick a side. The focus is entirely on the actions of the journalists and what they do to survive long enough to get the shot or the story.
Since they’re operating in an environment where no combatant’s motives can be assessed, their work, as presented, is completely amoral. It doesn’t matter what the armies are fighting for, or what the rednecks might want, or love, or hate, or hope for; all that matters to the filmmakers is the work of a journalism that is, itself, increasingly abstract. At one point Sammy, the elderly reporter, mentions “what’s left of the New York Times.” Trying to identify himself to Plemons’ militiaman, Joel says they work for Reuters. Whether or not this is a lie is beside the point. By the time the White House is taken by the rebels, will the news business even exist?
So aside from the goal of overthrowing the government for entirely uncertain ends -- “There's no coordination between the secessionists,” says one journalist in an early scene. “You watch: soon as DC falls, they'll turn on each other;” and the protesters in the first scene who chant “We want water” — the reasons why any of the characters are doing what they do are obscure. In the end, young Jessie Gets The Shot of grinning soldiers posing with the body of the President they have just murdered -- but to what end? She has learned to be a combat photographer – an entirely aesthetically-driven, amoral one. And with apologies to the filmmakers who have striven to avoid taking sides, this is not an apolitical ending, but one that is clearly fascist.