`Civil War': `No nation is immune'
“Civil War” is a purpose-built powder keg of controversial talking points and hot-button ideas. In the near-future world depicted in the film, California and Texas align to take up arms against a fascist, corrupt third-term president who has disbanded the FBI and turned the military against U.S. civilians.
The movie joins other evocative dystopian portraits by Alex Garland, whose previous work as writer-director includes “Ex Machina” and “Annihilation,” as well as the screenplays to “28 Days Later,” “Never Let Me Go” and “Dredd.” Garland's latest is also a tender, emotionally complex look at legacy and what we leave behind, driven by the performances of Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny as two photojournalists, a veteran and a novice, trying to process all that they see in a climate that has become deeply skeptical of the press.
“Civil War” had its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film and TV Festival last month in Austin, Texas, just a few blocks from the state Capitol building. As the movie ended and the destabilized audience recomposed itself, Garland and cast members Dunst, Spaeny and Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, who plays another reporter, took to the stage for a Q&A.
It speaks to the knifeedge the movie exists on that, when the SXSW premiere played in two separate theaters, a specific moment in the film elicited triumphant cheers in one crowd and stunned silence in the other.
Attempting to process the film's anxiety-inducing sound design and disorienting sense of intense, imminent danger will be difficult for anyone, so the idea of immediately standing in front of an audience and coherently speaking about it seems near impossible.
Someone noted that it was Spaeny's first time seeing the film. With a mix of quiet concern and shocked incredulity, Dunst asked, “Why would you do that to yourself?”
In the film, a group of journalists make their way from New York to Washington, D.C., hoping to get what will likely be the last interview with a besieged president on the brink of being violently deposed. Photographer Lee (Dunst) and her reporting partner Joel (Moura) have reluctantly agreed to give a ride to an aging New York Times correspondent, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), when they also take on Jessie (Spaeny), an aspiring, camera-clad shooter.
Their journey takes on an increasingly hallucinatory quality as they travel through a broken America, repeatedly encountering situations where it is unclear who is fighting against who and why.
It all builds to a staggering battle sequence in Washington and the White House. Along the way, Lee seems less and less sure of why she is doing this work, while young Jessie is drawn closer to the flame of danger. It's only a week or so after the Austin premiere when Dunst and Spaeny join The Times on a video call, with Dunst at her home in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley and Spaeny visiting family in Springfield, Missouri.
After they both take a moment to admire the brown vintage jacket Spaeny is wearing, Spaeny recalls what it was like seeing the film for the first time.
“I felt really shaken,” she says. “It's very immersive. It's a film that sort of grabs you and never lets you go until the very end. There's no real room to breathe.”