When I first heard that Alex Garland was delivering a movie titled "Civil War" I had to prepare myself for the inevitable disappointment that it probably wouldn't be a cinematic homage to the great Guns 'n' Roses track from the Use Your Illusion II album. Strangely, I didn't expect to sit through the end credits while wishing that Garland HAD done that. Because that would have been better than this, as far as I'm concerned.
What you have here, unsurprisingly enough, is a tale of a civil war. This particular civil war is happening across the USA though, and it may well end with the capture of the President (Nick Offerman). A number of war correspondents and photo-journalists are travelling across the country as they document the unfolding events, with Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and Joel (Wagner Moura) ultimately shielding and mentoring young Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), and the film shows how these characters try to remain observers only in a war that will be decided by those actively participating.
I like Garland, having been a fan of his since becoming aware of him through his collaboraions with Danny Boyle, but his directorial career seems to show the output of a man who consistently has one great idea or image that he then tries, and fails, to build a movie around. Civil War is most effective in THAT scene, you know it from the trailer, but nothing else comes close to that, despite the fact that the central premise should be ripe with the potential for commentary on where sowing seeds of division and discontent can lead.
I have more to say about this, but let me mention the cast first. Dunst and Moura feel wasted, they don't have to respond to events around them with anything other than an interest in how it can serve their own purpose, and it's up to Spaeny to make up for their disappointingly flat performances. Thankfully, Spaeny has already proven to me that she can shine in lacklustre material (e.g. see her be fantastic in the not-so-fantastic Priscilla), and she would be the best thing here if it wasn't for one scene being completely stolen by a terrifying Jesse Plemons. Stephen McKinley Henderson also does well with his screentime, but those are very small crumbs on the side of a main dish that is sadly undercooked and unseasoned.
I don’t fault the cast though. This is Garland’s film, and he is responsible for hanging his actors out to dry. Sadly unable to depict any of the politics and behaviours that would lead to such a situation, Garland just decides to make the film about the idea of people allowing bad things to happen by simply doing nothing, or not doing enough, to stop them. He assembles people around him who would have been more than up to the task of delivering something more thought-provoking and challenging, but all we end up getting are a couple of well-shot moments and some very good music from Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury.
Maybe Garland has one more truly great movie in him, but it is becoming more doubtful with every new feature he directs. Maybe he should return to writing, and leave the directing to those who are more capable of taking risks and piecing together individual moments into an end result that is more than the sum of its parts.
3/10
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"What's so civil about war anyway?"
ReplyDeleteWhenever people here talk about a civil war it's hard to get my head around it. The original civil war here everything pretty much split along the line of slave states and non-slave states. Armies were pretty much raised locally because there wasn't much of a standing army.
But in 2024 you have red states, blue states, and "purple states" that are a mixture of each. You have a standing army, navy, and air force. So how does a civil war work? Do you have pockets of military units, militias, random people fighting each other? Plus you have nuclear weapons and who's going to control that? What if some rogue sub decides to just shoot all its missiles and blow up the world?
It's hard to picture and doesn't sound like Garland really got his head around it either.
Indeed. Things have moved on a long way since the days of the American Civil War, but Garland isn't really interested in any of that.
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