War dramas take a stark, timely look at patriotism
What is the cost of patriotism? That’s the weighty question posed by two timely new dramas depicting the war at home: Thank You for Your
Service (now showing) follows two young soldiers (Miles Teller and Beulah Koale) suffering from PTSD upon returning from Iraq. And Last
Flag Flying (now in New York and Los Angeles, expands nationwide Nov. 17) is a road-trip movie about three Vietnam War veterans (Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell and Laurence Fishburne) who reunite to bury one of their Marine sons.
The latter is adapted from Darryl Ponicsan’s 2005 novel and directed by Richard Linklater. Much like the filmmaker’s signature movie Dazed and
Confused, most of Last Flag is spent with Larry (Carell), Sal (Cranston) and Mueller (Fishburne) shooting the breeze and swapping stories, airing their grievances about the Iraq War and their time in the service, and mulling whether to forgo a military burial for Larry’s son as an act of protest.
“I didn’t want it to be false heroism,” Linklater says. When you’re a soldier, “you’re at the bottom of the heap, so there’s a lot of (complaining) and moaning,” and many feel underappreciated when they come home.
But Last Flag’s central trio ultimately agrees to move forward with a military funeral, because “when it comes down to that moment of tragedy and the ultimate sacrifice Larry Jr. has made, they’re going to respect him,” Linklater says. “They put their own politics aside.”
Thank You explores a similarly complicated relationship with patriotism, telling the true story of Adam Schumann (Teller) and “Solo” Aeiti (Koale) as they struggle to readjust to civilian life. Stretches of the film are spent in therapy sessions and veterans hospitals, where the characters are met by inattentive staff and long waits for treatment.
“It’s such a big part of what these guys return to,” says writer/director Jason Hall ( American Sniper).
The movie’s title is also meant to rebuff that colloquialism people trot out when they greet veterans.
“‘Thank you for your service’ is a downright cop-out,” Hall says. For soldiers, the act of “coming home is equally heroic, and we need to find a way to help them do that.”
Darker facets of heroism in recent war movies such American Sniper and
Zero Dark Thirty could resonate more deeply this fall, given the hundreds of athletes who have protested racial inequality by kneeling during the national anthem, and recent claims that President Trump told a soldier’s widow her husband “knew what he signed up for.”
Says Hall, “We don’t have a grasp of what these guys go through, and that rings clear.”