Alex Garland’s extrapolation of the current U.S. crisis of cultural division to its most extreme ends is very disturbing not just because of the ultra-violence on display but also due to its purposeful vagueness. The second American civil war is being fought between two sides whose positions are never fully explained. Even the journalists covering the conflict, who are centered as the protagonists of the film, don’t seem to know. It’s why the veteran photojournalist, Lee (Kirsten Dunst), is leading the troupe from New York to Washington, so as to actually find out. We know that the national military is battling something called the Western Forces, the product of an alliance between Texas and California, a combination I would never have come up with myself, but Garland obviously means to put across the notion that chaos rules—there’s also a “Florida alliance” that seems to have its own separate agenda. Also unclear is on which side of the political-cultural divide the current president stands, and as the events of the movie unfold it becomes apparent that much of the killing is more or less an expression of settling scores, meaning the war is an excuse for anyone with a gun to get theirs. And that’s what makes it supremely scary, because, as extrapolations go, it’s easy to see how we get from our present situation to the one in the film. 

But if the movie is “about” anything it’s the way violence is a kind of drug, which is where the media come in. Lee, though seasoned and not at all sentimental, understands how dangerous the appeal of her job is, and you can see the culmination of that sensibility in another veteran along for the ride, Joel (Wagner Moura), who admits to digging the high. The older New York Times reporter, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), is less enthusiastic and appears vexed by his colleagues’ enthusiasm, which soon infects ambitious rookie, Jesse (Cailee Spaeny), who idolizes Lee until circumstances give her the opportunity to make a name for herself, and at that point all bets are off. The plot takes the form of a road trip through hell, with the quartet using their press credentials to get close to the action and witness atrocities that are carried out so casually that they approach the surreal. Garland, a seasoned director as well as a published novelist, knows that his profession has had something to do with this capacity for cruelty, since the combatants often take cues from action figures in big budget movies. The film’s most frightening scene has Jesse Plemons as a soldier (Which side? I couldn’t tell) who feels his rifle gives him the power to act as judge, jury, and executioner. During the climactic battle in Washington, the gung-ho attitude of the rebels who are closing in on the White House mimic that of the heroes you see in countless war movies, and then you figure out their mission is to assassinate everyone in the executive branch. 

Though Civil War in admirably thorough in its presentation of a nightmare scenario that feels real, in the end its cynicism gets the better of it. As an avid moviegoer I admit to falling for the kind of violence that Garland is offering up for our delectation as a way of interrogating our appreciation of what it’s done to the American consciousness, but there’s a certain “whataboutism” behind the movie’s thematic thrust that’s a turn-off; which isn’t to say it can’t happen this way.

Now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Marunouchi Piccadilly (050-6875-0075), 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku (0570-060-109), Shinjuku Wald 9 (03-5369-4955), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Shibuya Cine Quinto (03-3477-5905), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Civil War home page in Japanese

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