Civil War, the latest film from British writer-director Alex Garland, is pissing off certain sections of certain social media sites. Garland, they say, doesn’t give enough background as to the nature of the titular conflict. What are the sides here? What are the equivalents to our present-day political conflagrations? Who is on what on team? Leave it to Twitter to complain that a movie doesn’t give them enough homework.
What these complaints miss is that the very thing they want, the very explanations they demand Garland offer, are deliberately left vague. And not only that, the omission adds, not subtracts, to the power of the film. A movie emphasizing visceral experience over intellectualizing! Imagine that!
Civil War takes place at some point in the near future—say, 20ish years, though that’s also unspecified. The president of the United States, played by Nick Offerman, is holed up in the White House, under siege by what are called the Western Forces, some kind of military-political alliance between Texas and California, seeking to overthrow the Loyalist states that remain under the command of the President.
A photojournalist, played by Kirsten Dunst, sees the writing on the wall. The President, and the government he represents, is on the verge of collapse. Before that happens, she wants to get the shot of her career. An image of the President, who hasn’t given given an interview in more than a year. Joined by her war correspondent colleague, who wants to interview the President one last time, as well as an older pundit and a rookie photographer, they set off on a road trip to Washington DC, the clock ticking.
Why are the Western Forces arrayed against the President? Who are the factions that pop up throughout the Eastern Seaboard? What is the conflict that tipped the country into this maelstrom of violence? Civil War doesn’t tell us. Some critics see this as a shortcoming. They’re wrong, though. The confusion, the lack of clarity, not knowing which team to root for: this is the point. This is what war, what revolution, looks like.
There’s a moment early on where the journalists stop by a mall, where a helicopter has crashed in the parking lot. The rotors are bent and wires snake on the ground. The entrance to the food court is visible in the background. The image holds, and you think to yourself: this is exactly what this place was waiting for.
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