Scary ‘Civil War’ a dystopian vision of America
Alex Garland’s “Civil War” is essentially a horror movie, one in which the horrors feel uncomfortably close to home. In this vision of America, the country is divided into two violent factions: one led by a fascist threeterm president (Nick Offerman, in a small but vivid role), the other an armed rebellion against the government. Four journalists — photographer Lee (Kirsten Dunst), her reporting partner Joel (Wagner Moura), veteran writer Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and young aspiring photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) — travel across hundreds of miles of this war zone to reach Washington, D.C., in the hopes of getting one last interview with the president.
It’s a strange, terrifying journey, punctuated by bodies and blood and an eerily deafening soundscape. They drive past empty streets, abandoned cars and urban buildings with curls of smoke rising. They bargain, at a remote gas station manned by hostile men toting guns, for fuel (their offer of $300 is scoffed at until Lee clarifies that it’s $300 Canadian).
They witness a firing squad, a bloody riot on a city street, a load of bodies in a dump truck, snipers on the roof of an idyllic-looking small-town street. And they run toward all of it — taking pictures, asking questions, documenting, remembering. If “Civil War” wasn’t so utterly horrifying, it could be a superhero movie, with journalists wearing the capes.
But in its quieter moments — you wish there were more of them — the film becomes the story of an impromptu family: four people united by a common goal. No one is saintly here: Lee, hardened and weary from years of war reporting, bickers with Joel about not wanting to take responsibility for the inexperienced Jessie, and makes it clear that Sammy is a burden; he’s old, she says, and can’t run. But ultimately they take care of each other in sometimes surprising ways, and the actors let us see that bond. Dunst, whose Lee seems hardwired to expect danger at every turn, beautifully lets us see the faintest of meltings as she becomes a reluctant mentor to Jessie. And Henderson shows us an aging man full of stories, even those he didn’t want to tell; he’s still seeking one last byline, somehow.
“Civil War” creates the sort of dystopian world in which little flashes of normality seem startling: water bottles, newspaper vending boxes, a dress shop open for business, a quiet hotel room. They’re tiny islands of calm for these characters racing through a war zone, not knowing how long they can stay alive.
Lee, at one point, muses on her career documenting violence. “I thought I was sending a warning home:
Don’t do this,” she says. The words hang in the quiet for moment, soon drowned out by gunfire.