Illustration by Michael DiMilo
Life During Wartime: Review of Civil War
★★★☆☆
By Geoff Carter
Civil War is a hard film—although not as hard as some—to pigeonhole. It’s a war movie, it’s a road movie, it’s a political thriller, it’s a journalism movie, and a (sort of) post-apocalyptic film. It also might be argued that it borders on being a docudrama. And, in our current political climate, one could also argue that the movie draws more than a few elements from the horror genre. It is frighteningly close to the bone.
Set in the undefined near future, the film opens on a close-up of the President of the United States rehearsing lines to a speech, saying in effect that the country was on the brink of its greatest victory in rhetoric that sounds eerily close to that of Stalin, Hitler, or Mussolini.
The film than moves to a crew of journalists traveling to a riot—apparently over a water truck—in New York City. Violence ensues and Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a veteran photojournalist, calmly steps in and starts snapping pictures of the altercation. She sees Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a young woman who is apparently not a member of the press, but who is snapping pictures of the melee. Lee gets Jessie out of harm’s way and the two of them, and Lee’s partner Joel (Wagner Moura) manage to narrowly escape a suicide bomber’s blast. Afterwards, Lee calmly wanders through the wreckage, silently taking photos.
It seems the United States is embroiled in a civil war. The “Western Forces” of California and Texas as well as a third secessionist movement from Florida are closing in on the authoritarian regime of the federal government, which is headed by a president (Nick Offerman) in his third term.
Joel and Lee, along with their mentor Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) decide to travel to D.C. to photograph and interview the president before he is overthrown—a last big story. Jessie persuades Joel to let her tag along and learn the art of photojournalism from Lee, the best, who is not excited about taking a rookie.
The four start the trip, having to take a roundabout route from NYC to D.C. in order to avoid the closing ring of the Western Forces. Stopping for gas along the way, Lee negotiates a gas sale with the heavily armed owners (having to use Canadian dollars) while Jessie sees two men hanging from the rafters of a carwash, severely beaten because they were caught looting, Jessie cringes when one of the owners, a young man who tells her he went to high school with one of looters, asks if he should shoot him. Lee intervenes, asking the young man to pose with the looters. He shoots the guy later.
As the four make their way to D.C., they cover a pitched firefight during which Jessie acquits herself well as a fearless photojournalist—and then run a across a refugee camp set up in a sports stadium. Lee starts to thaw toward Jessie and, recognizing her potential, begins to mentor her. As they continue their journey, they run across a surreal scene at an old decrepit Christmas fair where two soldiers are attempting to dispatch a sniper. When Joel asks if the sniper is the enemy, they reply they don’t know.
On the road, they meet two fellow journalists, Tony (Nelson Lee) and Bohai (Evan Lai). Jessie and Tony switch places in the moving car and speed ahead. Lee and her crew discover Jessie and Lee further up the road. They have been captured by a militia group burying civilian bodies in a mass grave. The militia leader, brilliantly portrayed by Jesse Plemons at his creepiest, gives probably the most profound and insightful glimpse into the dehumanizing and brutal effects of war on the human psyche.
Sammy is killed during the encounter, so Joel, Lee, and Jessie continue—embedded in the Western Forces—on the final march to D.C. In a grueling battle sequence, the rebel forces penetrate the final White House defenses and gain a final victory.
Part of what makes Civil War such an unsettling film is that it is so possible. Hints of the brutality and violence, even in civilian life, are already apparent in today’s divisive political environment. While the exact causes of the civil war are never defined, and the president (brilliant captured in all his pseudo-machismo glory by Nick Offerman) is not meant to represent any particular political figure, it’s hard not to draw parallels between this fictive world and our own.
Following a group of journalists covering the conflict demonstrates the numbing effects of constant exposure to the horrors and random violence of war. No one can escape the psychological toll of so much death and destruction. Lee, the jaded war photographer, sees the defenses she has carefully build up crumble as suddenly and completely as a bomb blast. As Jessie becomes immune to the horrors seen through her viewfinder, she seems to compartmentalize any vestiges of humanity.
I couldn’t help thinking of Haskell Wexler’s brilliant 1960s film Medium Cool during Civil War. In that film, too, the price of journalistic objectivity is paid for with a payment calculated with logarithms from the human soul.
While the premise and cautionary tale aspects of Civil War are compelling, it could have been a better movie. While Alex Garland’s direction is excellent, his screenplay is lacking. The characters of Lee and Joel lack the necessary chemistry to fuel the story. Part of this is because Lee’s character seems monochromatic and one-dimensional. She is jaded, guarded, and world-weary, but even when she warms up to Jessie and relates to her mentor Sammy, her real self never seems to break through her emotional armor. Kirsten Dunst never seems to find the balance between Lee’s humanity and professionalism.
Joel’s character is ebullient, decisive, ambitious, and hard to believe. While he accompanies Lee as a reporter, we never see him taking notes, interviewing subjects, or filing a story. After Sammy dies, his prolonged grief seems a little—well, overdone—both in the screenplay and in Moura’s portrayal.
On the other hand, Cailee Spaeny’s performance as Jessie seems much more genuine and believable. Ranging from a fawning acolyte to a horrified kid to a goofy teenager to a hardened professional—a wide range—Spaeny manages to keep Jessie fresh and believable. As always, McKinley Henderson is brilliant. His Sammy is a portrait of decency and integrity whose intelligence, wit, and warmth also seem to leap off the screen. The casting of Offerman as the president is nothing short of brilliant—a cup of machismo with a dash of bluster and two tablespoons of cowardice. And, as the sadistic militia captain, Jesse Plemons just about steals the show.
Civil War is a film worth seeing—and should probably be seen as a cautionary tale by all Americans. There is a possibility that this what we may become, a chilling and horrifying future for America, and it is a future no one should want.
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