"Civil War" Isn't the Film You Think It Is

It's refusal to take sides is both frustrating and revealing

Civil War is a dangerous movie, and that’s a good thing. It has been a long time since cinema was dangerous. Much ink has been spilled about how movies are losing their cultural power, replaced by TV, streaming services, sports, and TikTok videos. But little can compare to the experience of sitting in a dark room with strangers and having your body and soul stirred by images that feel ripped from your dreams—or your nightmares. Civil War is that kind of movie. It puts its finger on our dangerous moment in history and shows us a scenario we’ve all tried to pretend cannot happen here.

Even before its release, Civil War was dinged for its lack of political conviction. The trailer featured the President of the United States (Nick Offerman) referencing the “Western Forces of Florida and California,” causing knee-jerk cynics to howl at the idea that those two states could ever find anything to agree on. Writer-director Alex Garland caused even more controversy when he suggested in an interview that the biggest problem in the U.S. is polarization, and if the left and right just sat down and talked, everything would work itself out. This is why I don’t go to directors to explain the meaning of their work. Cinema is communication. Speaking it aloud can only lead to misunderstanding. Many left-leaning critics fretted about Garland’s comments, worried that the film would take a middle-of-the-road approach to American politics and ignore the fact that the anti-democracy activity is really coming from one side of the aisle.

A partisan blockbuster (and yes, unfortunately, democracy is now a partisan issue) would have little value beyond preaching to the choir and antagonizing everyone else. Instead, Civil War sets its sights on those who refuse to take sides. It follows four journalists who travel from New York to Washington to get what they consider to be the only important story left: an interview with the embattled President. Lee (Kirsten Dunst) is a weary photojournalist of great renown, now covering the war for Reuters; Joel (Wagner Moura) is Lee’s more enthusiastic colleague, an adrenaline junkie who seemingly chose war reporting just for the thrill; Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) is their mentor who now works for the New York Times and is too old to handle himself but is allowed to tag along mostly for old times’ sake; and Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), an impossibly young freelance photojournalist who idolizes Lee and finagles her way into their group to learn the ropes from her hero.

You’ll probably notice there’s nothing new here. “We record so others can ask,” Lee tells Jessie after a particularly gruesome encounter, offering her a crash course in journalism that she—and we—probably should have learned already. The little character development the film offers also feels ripped from smarter, better films. As this crew gets closer to the frontlines and sees some increasingly messed-up shit, Lee and Jessie pass each other on their respective journeys. Jessie’s youthful enthusiasm dissipates; her soul hardens, and she transforms into a professional war photographer. Lee, meanwhile, develops a maternal urge to protect Jessie from harm, which, of course, leads her to get involved in situations she otherwise would have merely observed.

It’s here that Garland’s refusal to take sides in the war, or even explicate what the two sides stand for, holds the film back. The idea of a young journalist learning to detach from the story she’s covering could certainly resonate, but it would have helped if Jessie were attached to something to begin with. Imagine if Jessie had entered the story as a true-blue believer in the rebellion (or the state, whichever) and then, over the course of the film, abdicated her political allegiance to adopt a neutral stance more befitting of a war journalist. Smart people can debate whether war journalists are actually neutral—and that would be an interesting debate to have—but it would add much-needed depth to her journey. To do that, of course, Garland would have to explain what was actually being fought over, or at least what the two sides represented. As it stands, we don’t know which sides are the fascists and which are pro-democracy, and Jessie’s transformation, from a young reporter who weeps at the sight of suffering to a more seasoned one with an objective eye, isn’t particularly impactful.

With its superficial approach, Civil War plays more like a blockbuster than a political treatise. There are tropes galore. It plays out much like a video game, with our protagonists encountering one challenge after another on their journey. None of it builds on what has come before. You could also read it as a classic “road trip” movie, a genre that requires a plot more episodic than linear.  As our quartet travels through Pennsylvania and West Virginia before finally making their way to Washington, we see images that we’re not used to seeing in America: military checkpoints, suicide bombers, a ditch filled with dead bodies. Do they tie together into a compelling narrative? I’m not so sure they do. The characters are thinly-drawn, the plot is flimsy, and it doesn’t develop its themes.

It’s almost as if Garland misunderstands his own film. It’s not about journalists. It’s about the images they capture. As the U.S. sits on the precipice of an actual authoritarian regime, many among us are frightened. We fear the worst. But do we actually envision it? Will we let ourselves go there? Civil War shows us realities we’re not ready to face. That’s the kind of dangerous I want from cinema. I’m not sure if movies can ever affect our political landscape or shift the culture the way it once did. But they still have the ability to conjure and confront. To trick us into sitting with strangers and feeling things we’d rather not feel, and leave the theater trying to understand our own reactions to these new, old images. There’s little doubt that Civil War accomplishes that rare feat.

<<<SPOILER ALERT>>>

Which brings us to the final sequence. Lee and her crew finally get to Washington, where the Western Forces are making their final push to capture the White House. When they find the President, we’re told, they’re going to execute him. By this point, Lee, Joel, and Jessie are embedded with the rebel troops. As they stay close to the soldiers trying to breach the outer walls of the White House, we stay close to them. It’s immersive war cinema of the highest order, especially since it deals in such a visually taboo subject. Search cinema, and you won’t find many representations of full-scale attacks on the White House, Buckingham Palace, Élysée Palace, or the Kremlin, at least outside of cartoonish disaster movies.

Civil War is something different. It shows you what it would look and feel like if a domestic army breached the White House walls, battled with Secret Service agents, and eventually found the President hiding under his desk in the Oval Office. It can’t happen here, we have always said. Now that we have seen what it looks like, it’s a little harder to say that, but what we do with that information remains unasked. I’m also not sure we can blame Garland for that. We see unspeakable images on the news and on social media. Every day, we witness tragedies that should make our citizenry rise up in action. But little action occurs. Our thirst for content swallows our moral outrage and spits it back out. Civil War exemplifies this approach, showing us an American nightmare and an American blockbuster simultaneously, soothing us and rousing us in equal measure. Some will say it’s the film’s fundamental flaw. I say that in this particular moment in American civilization, when policy is impervious to tragedy, it’s a distinction with an ever-diminishing difference.