MIDNIGHT REVIEWS Civil War
Midnight Reviews features reviews and thought pieces written and edited by a parent, at night, after bedtime.
Civil War (1hr 49mins)
Directed by: Alex Garland
Featuring: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson
Synopsis: The United States of America have shattered into pieces. The President (Nick Offerman) leads a battle against rebellious states from the Oval Office, but things aren’t going particularly well. Three journalists (Dunst, Moura and Henderson) all make the cross country trip in an attempt to interview him. Jessie (Spaeny), an aspiring photographer, finagles a space so she can tag along.
Review: With a movie like Civil War, the emphasis from the day the first poster gets released is going to be on what the director is trying to say. Writer-director Alex Garland, he of Ex Machina and Annihilation, has before set his sights on science fiction that tells us about, among other things, what happens when people aren’t held accountable and what happens if we lose track of what makes us human. Civil War, despite the lack of sci-fi, is an extension of this theme.
From the word go, we are shown a President who is perhaps being held accountable for his actions, but is lying to camera when he says that things are going well. What little screen time Offerman has is spent rehearsing the President’s speeches, carefully changing the odd word or two, trying out different intonations, in order to get the message he wants across. The rest of the main characters have as their mission a true accounting of what has gone wrong.
Road trip!
This is a movie about the press and how integral they are. We are also shown early on that Civil War is going to try and document examples of how far they’re willing to go to get a story. And boy, do they go places.
A photographer, Lee (Dunst), isn’t going to simply take any old photo. At times she is inches away from a man being set on fire, is next to grenades when they go off and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with soldiers in the midst of a firefight. She sometimes wears a helmet, but at other times it’s up to her press badge to be her body armour. Most of the time she manages to keep her steely gaze through the lens of a camera.
Joel (Moura) and Sammy (Henderson) are writers, at times squabbling, at times convivial, but always with their eyes on the prize. With their young upstart photojournalist Jessie aboard, they head towards DC. Along the way there are skirmishes between armed groups, invisible snipers and an encounter with some war criminals. Road trip!
Garland presents these vignettes seemingly in the hope of reflecting not just America, but to inform us that this could happen anywhere. “I always thought I was sending back a warning,” Dunst’s character laments when talking about her work in foreign lands. It’s here that her spirit starts to break. There are fabulous performances from all, but particularly Dunst who shows in the smallest gestures and twitches the most complex emotions at any one time. Even her intonation change as she asks Jessie to follow her to an abandoned wreckage speaks volumes.
Garland is also trying to show us how the nature of war, whether you are a soldier, a civilian or a reporter, makes every human expendable. To be a journalist, he says, you need untouchable nerves and a soul of steel. But no one holds out indefinitely and the timer is ticking for you, whether it’s a relatively long countdown or not.
Shredded nerves and piercing tones.
In this way, the background details of characters don’t really matter. When it seems like we’re about to be forced to sit through some clunky exposition (and the little bits we get are cumbersome), we are fortunately moved on in swift fashion. We hear that Lee has the same name as Jessie’s real hero of photojournalism, but this coincidence doesn’t matter. The names of these characters ultimately don’t matter; what matters is the deed.
Despite how taut the film stretches our nerves besides, the soundtrack seems to be trying something that quite succeeds. Every so often a track will play that neither completely fits the scene nor lends any irony to what has just happened. It reminded me of complaints people have about Tarantino’s movies; the music just doesn’t fit, no matter what was intended in the director’s mind. This would be the one major quibble with Civil War.
The action set pieces and quiet moments are equally tense and enthralling. The camera we see through moves like a human being, with occasional glimpses of what either Lee or Jessie can see through their own viewfinders. But the action is never made out to be heroic. This is war, shown to be disconcerting, loud and bloody. Civilians are murdered at point blank range and the entire movie is one big coup. Lee and co are there every step of the way to document it.
There is no true victory in Civil War. By the end, certain people smile on camera but the only things felt are shredded nerves and piercing tones in the ear drums. And we are there every step of the way to see it.
Civil War is designed, nay screams, to be watched on the big screen. Catch it while you can.
Matthew D. Smith likes to overshare his views on movies whenever and wherever he can. Indulge him, and follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Smith_M_D
