The press is the big guy, but also a dangerous type, in Alex Garland’s virtuoso “Civil Struggle,” a shocking account of what a near-future U.S. deunification would look like. Purported as a wake-up call title, the feature-length thriller – which starts slow and snowballs into a jaw-dropping attack on Washington, D.C. – embeds viewers alongside a dedicated team of journalists who follow their way to the capital while the country unfolds around you. . It is probably the most disturbing dystopian vision of the science fiction mind that killed all of London by the zombie riot depicted in “28 Days Later,” and it cannot simply be consumed as entertainment. A literal shock to the system, the “Civil Struggle” was designed to cause division.
Led by veteran conflict photographer Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), the film’s tight team of journalists are consummate professionals. They symbolize a troubling kind of detachment, important to his work but virtually counterhuman in his ability not to take sides, which serves as an indictment of himself. News stores thrive on war – they sell newspapers, boost ratings – and have been largely responsible for spreading fear around the possibility of a second American civil conflict. Garland doesn’t care how it happened. Her script goes beyond why the war started, beyond the questionable notion that Texas and California seceded and later joined forces against a power-hungry three-term president (Nick Offerman).
Although it seems like another entry in the classic post-apocalyptic thriller style, make no mistake: “Civil War” depicts the apocalypse itself. The nation is in complete collapse, people have turned on each other, and the only people allowed to maneuver freely through areas of active fire are those with “PRESS” emblazoned on their bulletproof vests. Garland establishes chaos from the start as Lee covers a crowd scene where civilians have turned into refugees in their own country crying out for water. Suddenly, a girl runs in waving an American flag, a backpack full of explosives strapped to her chest.
Just like the coffee shop explosion in Alfonso Cuarón’s “Kids of Male,” the vérité-style explosion makes us nervous — though the world at large would never be able to witness it if it weren’t for Lee, who grabs his camera and begins documenting it. the carnage. Moments earlier, she pulled a young admirer, Jessie (“Priscilla” star Cailee Spaeny), to safety, successfully saving this wannabe idiot’s life. Jessie’s goal is also to be a conflict photographer, although she shoots black and white film – a young artist of Lee’s shooter. The formidable newcomer explains her path to Lee’s next assignment, driving with reporter Joel (Walter Moura) and veteran political reporter Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) to DC to interview the president.
Jessie sees herself inside the woman, even when she no longer sees herself in her personal reflection. In one scene, after narrowly surviving a shootout, the quartet enters a city that appears untouched by the conflict. They enter a store, where Lee tries on a dress and sees herself in the mirror. The film is that mirror, showing America the dangers of infighting and the potential costs of division. “Civil Struggle” serves as a cautionary tale, repurposing the kind of images audiences have seen in conflict zones abroad – dissidents hanging from bridges, lime-covered corpses piled in mass graves – and making use of them in familiar and All-American.
It’s surprising, to say the least. However, Lee has seen worse in her life (early on, decompressing in her bathtub, she runs through a sampling of the horrors she’s documented throughout her career, including a man lit on fire). If she ever knew empathy, Lee now seems numb to the past. When Jessie asks her idol what she would do if Jessie were dying, Lee looks back coldly and says, “What do you think?” She would get the shot after all.
The public has never seen Dunst like this. She seemed strong in “Power of the Dog,” but here, the overlapping conflicts drained her of her essence. (The star looked radiant at the film’s SXSW premiere, underscoring the transformation she’s undertaken into a job where resilience and simple, adrenaline-pumping intuition replace basic self-care.) Garland offers her character a series of opportunities to reconnect with his humanity. , while this tense and increasingly brutal road trip pushes them deeper into the proverbial heart of darkness. Much of the film takes place in broad daylight, which is not at all the aesthetic audiences expect from a modern conflict film, which often uses strategic filters to make every set piece appear gloomy.
The “civil strife” could unfold in a parallel dimension (the Cal-Texan team is confused about whether it is blue or red states operating this rebellion), but it looks very similar to the America we know. It is expected that the press will not take sides. Sometimes, amid the confusion, neither they nor we can distinguish between rebels and patriots – as in a scene at an outdoor Winter Wonderland attraction where soldiers try to kill a sniper. In this scenario, it hardly matters which team he is on. Later, Jessie Plemons appears wearing a camouflage uniform and heart-shaped sunglasses, pointing her gun at unarmed journalists. “What kind of American are you?” he demands of each of them. In today’s political climate, self-proclaimed patriots pose similar questions, with equally intimidating subtexts.
At this level of “Civil Struggle,” the film leans into outright horror. In fact, the final stretch feels more like something out of Stephen King (“The Mist” or “The Stand”) than any conflict film that came before, as the small group of journalists accompanies the Western Front to its big push. in D.C. Although Garland confirmed that Offerman was preparing a speech as president from the beginning, he sowed doubts in the man’s sincerity by interspersing real-world upheavals with the commander-in-chief’s speech. Still, surely no American wants to see what comes next, as Jessie and Lee accompany the troops trying to enter the White House.
Previously, the battles were intense, but in one way or another theoretical. This climactic siege feels terrifying, yet starkly different from the kind of war we witness in Ukraine today, as if Garland had miscalculated how such a confrontation might play out. Previously, Jessie tended to freeze under fire, but now she seems fearless, while Lee is wracked with anxiety attacks. Rather than spoil the crucial decisions each of them makes as the situation escalates beyond something “Has Fallen” hero Gerard Butler can save, consider the implications: At this point in the film, embedded alongside the rebels, they they are more fueled by a very distorted sense of responsibility. The media they work for has fueled the battle they are fighting and now their only focus is getting the scene – or the story, because that could also be the case.
Anyone who saw Garland’s previous film, the A24-backed wacky “Men,” knows that the director doesn’t hesitate to take things to their most nauseating level. “Civil Struggle” is no different. The director focuses on unleashing images, not only of conflict crimes in real time, but also of those who transmit these images to us. The script is maddeningly vague about why this battle takes place – though it’s necessary just to stay in the present to think about what triggered it – and while this ambiguity is certainly thought-provoking, it means there’s no way to defuse what we’re watching. there is no room for negotiation.
Unseen, the “Civil Struggle” has been criticized for exploiting tensions in an election year, when in fact, it is an example of the futility of the “sides”. Garland is the last person to recommend a group hug. As statements go, his powerful vision leaves us shaken, effectively repeating the question that quelled the riots in Los Angeles: Can we all get along?