Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on gigantic television.
It was only a matter of time before someone decided to project a new civil war onto the United States. The level of division is maddening and disturbing—there are states I’d rather not drive through right now, and some that I have driven through recently where I wasn’t exactly worried, but where I definitely felt out of place. Alex Garland’s Civil War feels like a worst-case scenario, but also feels unfortunately real.
We don’t actually get a great deal of background on the war that is being fought. We see the unnamed president (Nick Offerman) practicing a speech that feels a bit overblown and hyperbolic, especially since we soon learn that there are multiple successionist movements of varying strength and success, and the group commonly referred to as the Western Forces are rapidly approaching Washington D.C.
At a riot in New York City, photojournalist/combat photographer Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) survives a suicide bombing and protects a young photographer named Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) from being injured. That night, Lee and her Reuters colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) tell Lee’s mentor, New York Times journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) that they are heading to Washington. With the walls closing in around the president, they hope to interview and photograph him despite the fact that journalists are essentially shot on sight in the capital.
There are a few things that we are going to expect as a matter of course, this being a movie and all. One of those things is that when Lee gets to the car the next day, Jessie is already there. She’s talked Joel into letting her come along on the trip. In what follows, Lee starts to see real talent in Jessie’s photography and starts to mentor her as they move slowly toward the capital. Jessie, initially too terrified to take a picture of anything, soon becomes reckless, putting herself and others at risk for a shot.
But this is not a fun drive down the coast to the embattled city. Philadelphia is destroyed, so they need to head inland, drive around Pittsburgh, and then head down through West Virginia. Because of the war, everything is now a black market economy, with Canadian dollars being the currency of choice. Every encounter with someone new and unknown is fraught with tension; every unknown person is a potential enemy.
Make no mistake--Civil War is a war movie, but this is also a movie that has a great deal in common with, surprisingly, the stereotypical sports film. Lee is the grizzled veteran, gearing up for another campaign, jaded and suffering from combat fatigue, knowing what is coming from the trip ahead of them. Jessie is the rookie, terrified and caught up in what is happening, green but talented, taking risks that will get her or someone else hurt. In another script, they are Crash Davis and Nuke LaLoosh. That’s not an insult—it’s just a fact that this is a photojournalist version of Bull Durham, or more accurately, any Western where the cocky young gunfighter gets mentored by the man who’s had one gunfight too many.
At the same time, Civil War feels a great deal like a Vietnam film. There feel like connections to Apocalypse Now at times, but large parts of it feel much more like the scenes toward the end of Full Metal Jacket as the soldiers assault the building with the sniper. The battle sequences are intense and confusing, which is exactly what they should be. These are also intercut with snap photographs, showing us what both Jessie and Lee are seeing in their cameras and the pictures they are taking.
But is it any good? That’s actually not a question that is easily answered, because it depends on exactly how you mean it. It is a very well-made movie. The characters are good and easy to sympathize with, particularly Lee. For someone who really wants something new, though, there’s a lot less here than one might think. You can guess who is going to live and die with pretty good accuracy throughout. If that doesn’t bother you, though, there’s a lot here worth seeing.
It’s worth spending a little time talking about Kirsten Dunst as well. I don’t know when it was decided that Kirsten Dunst was one of those actors who get routinely made fun of for her work. Was it because she did Bring It On or because people were upset with the fact that she played Mary Jane in the first run of Spider-Man movies? Was it Marie Antoinette? She’s great in this, the clear star of the film and the most obvious focus for the audience to sympathize with. Dunst’s work in the second season of Fargo is probably her best work, but this performance gets a place on the podium.
I knew the basics of this. It’s better than I expected it would be, even if I made a lot of correct guesses.
Why to watch Civil War: It’s visceral.
Why not to watch: A lot of the story beats are precisely what you expect.
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