Civil War is Not What You Think

Source: IMDB.com

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW

The common cynical reaction to the Civil War trailer is “great, another movie with more political commentary from Hollywood, probably about the orange man.” Hollywood has leaned heavily into politics for at least a decade, if not more. Whether they are clever, poignant or insightful has mattered less as time has passed. Audiences are tired of it.

To the surprise of many who watched Civil War opening weekend, the film is not loaded with political commentary. It actively avoids allusions to current political leaders, issues, and instead dives straight into a generic civil war. The story is more about war journalism, survival, and perhaps a little bit of questioning of “how did it come to this?”

Sadly, there isn’t a satisfying answer at the end.

The film is from the perspective of the press, specifically photographers. They act as neutral observers, wanting to document the civil war and its atrocities for the news that isn’t censored, presumably, or for a post-war documentary of some kind. The original cause of the war is not covered at all, which is strange from a documentary and storytelling perspective.

One scene encapsulates this approach. The press team played by Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Caileee Spaeny, and Stephen McKinley Henderson are attacked by a sniper. After finding cover, they discover another sniper team trying to take out the shooter. Wagner Moura’s character, Joel, asks who they are, and who they are shooting at. Apparently, all sides wear similar uniforms and insignia.

The soldiers answer blankly, they don’t know who is shooting at them, only that they are shooting at them. His “why” follow up questions are met with “oh I get it, you’re retarded.” The scene and the movie as a whole convey the sides and their reasoning won’t matter. All that will matter about is whether they are shooting at you or not.

The scant details of the conflict strain credibility but was done with intent. It is a war between the federal government and secessionist states California and Texas. The matching of these secessionist movements inoculates it from being perceived as a conflict between the two political factions of today.

If blue California and red Texas are allies, then something truly bizarre has happened. There is little to no in-story propaganda or political speech in the movie, ensuring you get no context.

In my opinion, this was the right approach. It avoids alienating half of your audience, or potentially all of it. The movie also avoids annoying an audience exhausted by political commentary and propaganda in general.

Propaganda, by definition, is intended to spread ideas, facts, or allegations to further a cause, or damage an opposing cause. In the realm of entertainment, this is typically described as producers “having an agenda.” The term is usually limited to political causes or those in the realm of public policy debates. Social causes or things like public service announcements that raise awareness of certain risks to health, for example, or usually not labeled propaganda.

Propaganda is a loaded word with negative connotations but it is accurate. A significant number of executive producers, writers, and directors have proudly declared their projects have the intent of promoting certain ideas and values political in nature. This has always been true of some works but it has seldom been this overt, pervasive, and obnoxious. From Oscar acceptance speeches, to inflammatory social media posts, they feel it is their obligation to use their platform to promote the trendy ideas of the day.

It isn’t appealing and turns millions of moviegoers away.

Source: Polygon

Kirsten Dunst’s character, Lee, is a war photographer that has had a long and successful career. Witnessing the atrocities of the new century have visibly worn her down, aged her, and turned her into a cold cynic. In one scene, she admits she would photograph her colleague’s death if it were to happen on the job in a combat zone.

Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) is the young, aspiring photographer who flirts her way onto the team, desiring to follow in the footsteps of her sort-of hero: Lee. Predictably, the hypothetical scene of one photographer taking photos of a colleague’s death occurs at the end of the film. The scene is surprisingly brief. The surviving photographer simply gets back up and resumes her job. It could have been a powerful scene but its so rushed with no reaction other than snapping a few photos.

What kind of people can feel nothing about their country being torn apart? The only scenes where strong emotions are expressed is when Henderson’s character Sammy dies of his wounds and they learn they might miss their chance to interview the President before he is executed.

The audience for such photos and interviews is never described. Personally, I would want to know who will want these photos and why. Is there a dark voyeurism for those wanting to see the most graphic moments of the war? Or is it part of a sobering documentary on the atrocities of war to help prevent the next one? If so, how does photographing the death of a fellow photojournalist accomplish that?

This really should have been explored more. This scene did not hit as hard as it was intended or should have. The movie essentially ends right after Lee’s death. The big moment is the execution of the President, a man who is in the film for all of 1 minute and seldom discussed by the other characters.

Henderson’s character foreshadowed it earlier in the film. When the President is captured at last, his final words and moments are those of a coward. Not exactly a triumphal end to a great conflict. The final photo snapped during the credits is disturbing, soldiers posing, smiling triumphantly over the body of a dead President.

The images of a fractured US is horrifying. We’ve become violent and brutal. Could we fall like that, committing horrible war crimes upon one another?

I believe it is the intent of the movie to show us what it would look like. It is also my belief we certainly could and—if I could make one minor comment on current events—seem to be drifting in the direction of finding violence an acceptable means of obtaining political ends.

Kirsten Dunst does well as the tired, broken woman. Her facial expressions rarely change, which becomes frustrating towards the end. The script doesn’t ask her to do much. It feels similar to Alex Garland’s previous work on the show Devs. This movie has a similar feel and uses a lot of the same actors. Emoting is kept to a minimum, done in bursts, like Moura’s silent screaming after Sammy’s death.

Quick side note: a producer/director/writer using most of the same cast repeatedly may not bother audiences, but it is lazy. Instead of casting who is best for the role, Garland seems to cast his favorite people and makes it work.

Stephen McKinley Henderson, Cailee Spaeny, Nick Offerman, and Sonoya Mizuno were all in Devs. Mizuno was in Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Men as well.

Does he even do casting calls?

Anyway, back on track:

Cailee Spaeny plays the young, naive wannabe photographer well at times. She looks, acts, and appears like a typical teenager however. Although she claims to be 23 in the film, and the actress is in her mid-twenties (Wikipedia isn’t sure), she looks and acts like a teenager throughout the film. It has been said wars can accelerate aging. In this case, it seems to have slowed Jessie’s down.

Joel is clearly attracted to her and sees no problem bringing her along. Sammy is oddly okay with it, apparently lacking a single protective instinct of any kind. Lee is the only one who has some sense on the matter. All of this reinforces the picture of a morally ambiguous bunch. What kind of people would bring a young, wholly unqualified woman along for a drive into a war zone?

We never get a real explanation why, so we are left to think that Joel likes her and Sammy thinks its the best way for young people to break into the profession. Both are horrible reasons.

The acting was mostly solid, although Spaeny had one or two low moments. In the boat scene with Lee towards the end, her delivery explaining how she felt about Sammy’s death comes off flat. How this take made it into the movie is baffling. From what I’ve seen of her work, Spaeny is a decent actress. Yet her “I’ve never felt so alive” line was awful and is as much on Alex Garland as her.

The action sequences are strong and constrained, although one or two moments were silly. In typical Bay/Bruckheimer form, fighters fly a few hundred feet above the ground, Apache helicopters drop in and fly through narrow city streets not worried about their blades slamming into the adjacent buildings. You see this in big, dumb action films but you’d never see them in a serious war movie. Or at least, you never should.

On the other side, the infantry combat scenes and action felt real, gritty, closer to Blackhawk Down or Saving Private Ryan.

Although it is subtle, Nick Offerman’s President had a vague resemblance to Donald Trump. In the first scene, he is making a hyperbolic claim about a military victory. Using the Pledge of Allegiance, and other patriotic elements is also similar to Trump’s gimmicks but these would be used by any President desiring to hold the union together. They would almost certainly appeal to traditional patriotism, just as Abraham Lincoln did.

Sadly, he is in the movie for barely a minute.

A couple scenes did not work well, in particular the poor use of total silence in an early bombing scene. In my theater, you could easily hear whispers, squeaking chairs, and popcorn crunching for at least 30 seconds. The scene was also bright, illuminating the theater, reminding everyone that we were in a big room watching lights on a screen. At home, this probably is a smaller issue but this moment in the theater did not work at all.

Overall I would recommend the film, although would keep expectations modest. It is not what you expect. It is insightful and has a sobering view of how things would look if it all fell apart. Divorcing it from politics and current events allows the experience to penetrate more effectively rather than put the audience in a defensive mindset.

Having said that, the character development is relatively thin and the ending may leave you a little empty, as if you may have missed the point.

Some may not like the message, or feel there’s a lack of one. Others may not like the lack of romanticizing or dramatizing of war that you see in other films. Still, this movie will stand out in what has otherwise been a bad year for movies.