‘Civil War’: SXSW Review

Dir/scr: Alex Garland. US. 2024. 109mins

War in Alex Garland’s latest film isn’t hell; in this overwhelming and traumatic odyssey, it’s an unfathomable disease. Led by a transcendent performance from Kirsten Dunst, an unrecognisable shell of herself as battered photojournalist Lee, Garland’s sensorial dystopian portrait of a modern America beset by civil war is a sobering view of the psychological toll wrecked on journalists covering war-torn landscapes, told through the experiences of Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a hungry young photographer who idolises Lee   

 A film intent on shaking you into shock and awe

Civil War features jaw-dropping battles that rattle and hum, foregrounded by a bleak, devil-may-care desire to consume, report, forget, and remember — captured through a jarring poeticism that would be wholly admirable if it weren’t so hard to take in. Set for release in the UK and US on April 12 following its SXSW premiere, Civil War is a tough watch whose precision and crafts elevates it to the heights of Come And See and Black Hawk Down. The controversial subject matter – internal insurrection in America, carrying the memories of the 2021 attack on the capital into a US election year – will no doubt drive ticket sales. As will a stacked cast led by Dunst, coming off an Oscar nominated performance in The Power Of The Dog. 

From the moment we see Nick Offerman as the country’s president giving a speech calling his latest win a triumph of the military rather than democracy, we know Garland is playing with fire. For reasons left unknown, California and Texas have seceded to form the Western Forces (Florida has also formed its own government) — and they’re nearing victory. Lee and reporter Joel (a beguiling Wagner Moura) have decided to travel from New York City to Washington D.C, along with Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a sage journalist for The New York Times for what may be the last big story of the war. Before they hit the road, however, they run into Jessie who, following an atrocious explosion at a protest, desperately wants to be in on the action with her hero Lee.      

On its surface, Civil War – which is without any thoughts on race, queerphobia, or class – is intellectually barren compared to Garland’s previous work. After all, Men and Ex Machina considered female bodily autonomy, the latter through the guise of AI; Annihilation further grappled with our sense of human identity by arrestingly blending sci-fi and psychological angst. Civil War appears inert in that regard: we’re not even totally sure how or why this conflict began, or if any side is democratic, libertarian, republican or a separatist group. One of our few clues is Sammy comparing the president to the likes of Mussolini and Gaddafi.

That political flatness is, of course, partly a feature — not a glitch. This is a film riveted by the limits of objective journalism, particularly in war-torn countries. Lee’s journalistic ethos amounts to shooting first, no matter how gruesome the image, so others can ask questions later. Her narrow focus, which has sanded down any sense of grief, is inherited by Jessie who, throughout the film, not only takes greater and greater risks, but also loses all sense of fear and reverence. Spaeny is as live as a wire as Jessie, at one point adopting a ravenous mien while soaking up the senseless carnage happening around her. 

In that sense, Civil War follows many of the same beats as child war films like Germany Year Zero and Ivan’s Childhood. We are witnessing a loss of innocence on the part of Jessie, and the reawakening of Lee as she sees through Jessie’s eyes how she became so hardened. It’s telling, in fact, that Lee captures the world in the full complexity of color, while Jessie sees it in the harsh simplicity of black and white.

Civil War offers another tonal juxtaposition in its deadly aural dance. Oscillating between unnerving silence and crushing shrieks of mayhem, this is also a film intent on shaking you into shock and awe — distressing images of executions, bone-rattling explosions and sudden murder are caught through the shutter of a freeze frame, until you are as desensitised as these reporters. 

As an outsider to the US, British filmmaker Garland is well aware of how war is often captured by the American news. Harrowing images of permanent destruction and human obliteration are commonly disseminated. But there is a tactfulness to the depiction of American demise on the news. Garland, here, takes that contradiction to the extreme — as though to hold the viewer in the reflection of a bullet. 

Your mileage will vary on how much violence you can consume; you could throw plenty of literal trigger warnings at Civil War. For Garland’s part, he and DoP Rob Hardy have crafted a discomfitingly gorgeous film. The sunlight shines with caramel hues over bucolic landscapes kissed by lens flares. That beauty is often refuted by hellish events: a Christmas wonderland on rolling hills is turned into a hunting ground by snipers; a seemingly peaceful town untouched by combat nonetheless has gunmen manning the rooftops. Jesse Plemmons shows up in a memorably unhinged role. The eerie scenes perfectly encapsulate the historic brutality lurking under every jubilant image of Americana.  

Still, even for Garland’s adept visual storytelling, supported by daring cuts by Jake Roberts and offbeat needledrops, the core of Civil War feels hollow. It’s very easy to throw up a stream of barbarity on the screen and say it has deeper meaning and is telling a firmer truth. But at what point are you required to give more? Garland appears to be aiming for the profundity of Come And See — the very loss of innocence, as perfectly balanced by Dunst and Spaeny, through the repeating of craven cycles is the tragedy that breaks the heart. It is just not clear by the end, when this mostly risky film goes fully melodramatic in the Hollywood sense, whether Garland possesses the control necessary to fully capture the horrors.