Civil War
starring Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura, Stephen McKinley Henderson and Nick Offerman
written and directed by Alex Garland
Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
A dystopian film set in near-future America. The United States has fallen under a dictatorial President serving a third term. The White House is barricaded behind high walls with gun turrets, like a prison. The country is actively fighting a multi-faction civil war. About half the country is Loyalist (blue), and the other half divided among factions such as the Florida Alliance (red), the New People’s Army (yellow), the Western Forces (green).
The film follows a group of combat journalists driving across country towards Washington, D.C., documenting the conflict as they go. The intensity of fighting varies with geography. But as they approach D.C., where the President is barricaded with his dwindling forces and loyal officers, the fighting intensifies. The portrayal of intense fire fighting in American cities is simultaneously very realistic and surreal.
It’s kind of easy to see a real situation like this developing in America today, with all their guns, their militia’s, their extreme political polarization, and a character like Donald Trump openly advocating totalitarianism, dictatorship, imprisonment and murder of his political opponents, critics and journalists, etc. The messages the film bears about current American culture make it potentially quite controversial. Although, strictly as a film, it’s very well shot. It feels very convincing.
We see the richest country in the history of the world collapsing as a failed state, all the warring factions propelled towards disaster by the toxic effects of American exceptionalism and mythology. People are willing to tear each other to shreds over petty differences rather than defend any of the traditional principles of inclusive American liberal democratic capitalism.
But how did it come to this? The story tells us very little about the origin of the conflict and the different factions controlling broad sections of the country. We start with active civil war already in full swing. The existence of a President currently in his third term (a very grave, unconstitutional no-no) is the only clue we have to the gravity of the deterioration in the country. The problem, the breaking point remains unnamed.
The film ends when Western Forces troops breach the barricaded White House and execute the President. But with no explanatory backstory to the conflict and no resolution the story feels kind of unfinished.
Or not. It was a fun film.