Matthew Percefull
The majority of the world has become desensitized to death and violence. With social media and the culture of instant news, it seems like death is at every corner. Civil War, the latest offering from A24 and director Alex Garland—and one of Film Obsessive’s 24 Best Films of 2024—looks at this disturbing trend of apathy and places it in an uncomfortably recognizable dystopian future. Our main characters aren’t moral compasses set out to unite the nation and save the day. They aren’t even grizzled soldiers, ready to eliminate the opposition for their side. Instead, we don’t know what side our protagonists are on. Aside from a few lines here and there, the conflict itself is never truly laid out. The characters don’t need to care about the conflict; they’re war photographers, and they need to document it. We see our characters consistently tested over this skill of apathy. The film itself is cold and distant, placing the audience in the perspective of a camera; objective and unemotional.
Alex Garland is a divisive figure. Many consider him a genius with prophetic views of the world, while others find him to be pretentious and shallow. Whatever your opinion of Garland is, you can’t say he has nothing to convey. His previous film, Men, while a decent effort was pretty heavy-handed with its themes and messaging. Civil War takes the opposite approach. Most of its messaging and themes live in the subtext. If you watch this film on its surface level it could be hard to understand what is happening here. Some critics have taken the film as some sort of glorification of a civil war, instead of the warning that it is. Garland is concerned that we’re so used to violence, that we may be bringing it on ourselves.
Jesse (Cailee Spaeny) is an aspiring journalist and photographer looking to break in during the outbreak of the (fictional) second American Civil War. After a chance meeting with her idol Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), a decorated war journalist, Jesse decides to sneak her way onto their dangerous trek to interview the president (Nick Offerman). Throughout the quick yet bumpy trip, Jesse finds her innocence to be at stake. Lee tries her hardest to shield Jesse. She sees herself as an ambitious young girl. She sees the tenacity and willpower that will make her successful in this field, but she also sees the life and personality she will have to sacrifice to chase it. As Jesse grows colder and better at the job, Lee starts to slip and question everything that was once an afterthought for her.
Civil War isn’t so much about the pseudo-fictional war depicted in the film. It’s more interested in the war happening inside of Jesse. Her humanity is in constant battle with the desire to prove herself. Her first real interaction we see from her is outside of a gas station. The heavily armed owners have a few ‘looters’ tied up, beaten very badly. Upon seeing this Jesse is visibly upset, fighting back tears, while Lee stands calmly asking the man for a picture. This scene is incredibly important as it shows our character’s stances clearly and firmly. This allows us to visualize how much they change by the end of the film.
Like a rifle for a soldier, a photographer’s camera is like a part of them. To become most effective, they must also become a part of their camera. They have to become a tool as a soldier becomes a weapon. There’s a scene at the start of the second act where our crew of journalists find themselves in the middle of a shootout. Their cameras click and shudder at almost the same speed and rhythm as the gunfire around them. After this intense showdown with a sniper, an anticlimactic shot in the head is immediately followed by a funky rap needle drop as the soldiers and journalists stand around smiling like they’re at a water cooler. Like death isn’t surrounding them at every corner. They’re just on to the next stop. It’s like the camera acts as a barrier between them and the real world. Joel (Wagner Moura) feels invincible behind his camera. He smiles psychotically as the tension and carnage ramp up. He and Lee represent the two potential outcomes for Jesse.
After surviving two shootouts with general ease, our crew begins to let their guard down. Tony, a fellow photographer and a friend of Joel’s, drives by for a short race. They trade passengers and Jesse ends up in the car with a stranger. In attempts to find her, they end up at the feet of a violent militant group, led by Jesse Plemmons in an electrifying cameo performance. As they are surrounded by dead bodies they are finally forced into the center of the war for the first time in the film. They are eventually saved by veteran reporter Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who is fatally wounded in the process. The aftermath of this showdown shows us how weak our characters are without their cameras shielding them. Jesse vomits uncontrollably and Joel screams at the top of his lungs in grief while Lee sinks further into her numbness. They don’t turn back. They don’t even consider it. A day passes and they’re back on the road, with the same enthusiasm and glee for the chase they had before, except for Lee.
The last act of a war film is usually full of big action and loud explosions. Garland offers up something much more intimate for Civil War’s finale. As the crew reach closer to their goal of interviewing the president before his inevitable assassination, a shift is occurring between them. Jesse is actively losing her empathy while Lee’s is reemerging. These two seemingly learned two completely different lessons from the death of their colleague. Jesse seems to have taken it as a heroic move, cementing Sammy as a legendary journalist and fulfilling his life purpose. Meanwhile, Lee views his death as meaningless and tragic. It snaps her out of it and you can see it eating at her. Dunst plays these moments of self-doubt to perfection. Her role as a renowned journalist who has fallen a bit in stature over the years is a perfect late-career move for Kirsten Dunst. She and Spaeny play off of each other immaculately throughout the whole film, but especially here in the last act. There’s a scene of the two discussing their parents. They both admit that their parents are in middle America pretending that this giant war isn’t happening. Dunst and Spaeny are in the same boat without knowing it. They may be on the frontlines of the action, but they aren’t actually experiencing what the average citizen is. They don’t view it as a war; they view it as a job.
Nick Offerman’s president isn’t featured much in the film, but he weighs heavily throughout. You don’t know any more about him than what the characters vocalize. You hear of him drone-striking citizens early on but besides that, we don’t know much about him. He becomes somewhat of an object. He doesn’t truly matter. He just marks a finish line that our characters need to cross. The interview itself is even inconsequential. Joel and Lee don’t seem to even care how the president answers these questions. The goal is to interview the president, it’s that simple. So, when they finally make it to the White House, Joel and Jesse are primed and ready. They’re zipping around hallways and snapping whatever pictures they can during the propulsive raid. Lee is a bit more hesitant but eventually joins in. As Jesse’s decisions get more reckless Lee puts her guard up. All of the doubts she’s felt throughout the runtime fully manifest themselves in that moment. The president and the interview begin to fade into the background.
In a critical moment, Jesse risks her life for a picture. She steps in front of a bullet, nearly getting herself killed. Instead, it is Lee who meets this fate. At the last second, she leaps in front of the bullet, saving the young girl from certain death. This scene calls back to a much calmer one earlier in the film. Lee and Jesse discuss the probabilities of dying in their field. Jesse asks if Lee will take her picture while she is dying. Lee tells her yes, that any good journalist would. But when faced with the exact scenario, she folds into her humanity. She realizes that not having emotional stakes makes everything pointless. Where does pragmatism land you without the anchor of something, or in this case, someone to care about?
As Lee lays on the floor bloodied, there are no cries of anguish. Jesse simply takes her picture and rushes forward to the task at hand. Jesse learned how to access exactly what Lee was desperately trying to rid herself of, apathy. Its what allows her to step over her idol’s corpse like nothing. The last thing Lee sees are the eyes of a monster that she helped create. She sees the continuation of this carnage through the vessel of a young girl who just wants to contribute. In the narrative, her death and sacrifice prove mostly meaningless. After the rush of nabbing the president, the interview is anticlimactic. It doesn’t end anything; we know as an audience that all of the violence we witnessed will continue to happen. The actions of our main characters did nothing to stop evil, they instead just encouraged it. Civil War isn’t about how wars start; it’s about why they don’t end. The film warns us that the more desensitized we become to war, the more we invite it in.
