Civil War - "Least Woke Since American Sniper"

The movie, as it turns out, is not a liberal screed against half the country.

The reactions out of South by Southwest (SXSW) for Alex Garland’s Civil War are a mixed bag. Some call it a masterpiece, others say it is all spectacle with no substance. What does seem to be true is that the film is not what many people, including me, thought it would be. It is not a Bill Maher fever dream where Trump and MAGA overtake the country, and the marginalized groups have to overthrow them.

But that isn’t what it is, at least not according to this person who wrote me on Twitter:

The RT score right now is 88%, with just 25 reviews.

I have my doubts anyone who covers film on the Left can properly review this film. They will insert Trump in their analysis, borrowing from the media narrative that they all believe. I guess that will be true on the Right as well. It’s just that film criticism is dominated by people who watch MSNBC.

Take this review by David Crow of Den of Geek:

There is something innate in the American character which inspires and deludes us of our place in history, past and present. Call it a devotion to American exceptionalism, cynicism, or opportunism, but even Senator Josh Hawley—the Missouri politician who spent months fermenting discontent and conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, and who on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021 raised his fist in solidarity with a crowd of insurrectionists—seemed bewildered when the mob he played to actually stormed the barricades. There is footage of him fleeing for his life while Capitol Police officers like Brian Sicknick died defending the rule of law.

And yet, a little more than three years after that travesty, many are quick to smirk, shrug, or comfort themselves with the platitude of “it could never happen here.” Societal breakdown. Widespread political violence. Strongman authoritarianism. Civil war. In such a fog of complacency, Alex Garland’s latest film, titled simply Civil War, is not only a magnificent piece of cinema, but a cold, bitter ray of light which cuts through self-deceit. It imagines an apocalypse that isn’t science fiction but rather plausible speculation about where we could be five or 10 years down the road if the growing American dysfunction gets much bigger. And it captures this dread not through sensationalism or satire, or even for that matter much in the way of traditional commercial storytelling.

If you’re already that delusional and partisan about 2020 — not even including what happened over the Summer which was the biggest uprising we’ve ever seen in this country, even including January 6th — then a review like this is mostly meaningless.

A better review by Matthew Jackson of AV Club, writes:

The white-hot nucleus of this core is, as Garland has already made clear in interviews, the importance of a free press willing to do the hard work, get deep into the blood and guts, and document the reality of the moment. Simple as that idea might seem, Garland makes it clear through every image that the heroes of Civil War are making very deliberate, very dangerous choices along the way. Jessie, Lee, Joel, and Sammy might be occasional adrenaline junkies, even old hats at this sort of thing, but the experience of relentless observation and documentation has changed them, warped them, challenged their humanity. Garland goes to great lengths to document those challenges in ways both subtle and obvious. The film doesn’t choose sides, nor does it need to, because it’s not about the sides. It’s about the unflinching reality of such a moment, highlighted by the brief respites from the violence peppered throughout the narrative; that’s what makes Civil War an especially disturbing piece of thriller filmmaking.

On the negative side—

Mashable’s Kristy Puchko writes:

With Ex Machina, Garland lured audiences into an intriguing and isolated realm of robotic splendor and human hubris. Keeping the film brutally focused on its core space and its handful of characters, he built the perfect setting to explore toxic masculinity and the flaws in a white knight narrative. With Men, the pull of its harried heroine was darkly enchanting, presenting the overwhelming terror inherent in rape culture through a town entirely peopled by the same man in different roles, all of them bent toward some form of domineering menace. But from there, he added nothing new or all that thought-provoking about the experience of women in a man's world.

And now, with Civil War, Garland goes much, much bigger, aiming a critical lens at not just an idea like misogyny or grief but an entire nation and its history. Along the way, he shovels in a slew of characters, and ends up losing the trees for the forest. Pulled back so wide, this thought-provoking filmmaker's argument is lost amid his muddy portrayal of a nation that is no stranger to internal conflict, buried beneath the nuances and details he papers over with a smug indignation. 

Rolling Stone, which has upended itself in “woke” ideology of late, offers up David Fear’s review:

AMERICA IS IN a rough place right now — perhaps you’ve heard. Right vs. left, blue vs. red, blind faith vs. biased truth. What was once an ideological divide now seems like an unbridgeable chasm. No one can seem to agree on simple concepts like, say, “facts,” or “reality.” Historians like to point to the 1860s, when the future face of our $5 bill attempted to preserve our union while brother fought against brother — or even more recently, 1968, that annus horriblis of riots and assassinations and moral free-falls — as the rock bottom of our nation. Given the election year we’re in and the feeling that we’re about to reprise a truly contentious contest for the country’s highest office, however, it’s hard not to think we’re on the brink of a second conflict between citizens on our own soil. It can happen here. It can happen again. We do seem to love sequels.

Civil War is that rare piece of art that dares to open its doors to both Americas, and for that I am surprised, and grateful. It turns out it’s by design. Just when I’d mostly given up on artists and writers to help us out of this mess by attempting to write truthfully about this moment, this film seems like it might do just that.

Here is what director Alex Garland had to say:

“In the case of America, there’s an extra danger given its power and importance in the world. America has an internal concept in its exceptionalism that means it feels it’s immune to some kinds of problems. One of the things history shows us is that nobody is immune. Nobody is exceptional. And if we don’t apply rationality and decency and thoughtfulness to these problems, in any place, it can get out of control. I’m not trying to locate [these problems] to America, that would be factually wrong. I can take you back home [to Britain] and I can show you the same stuff happening in my country. But the implications here are much greater.”

And adds:

“Why are we talking and not listening? … We’ve lost trust with the media and politicians. And some media are wonderful and some politicians are wonderful—on both sides of the divide. I have a political position. I have good friends on the other side of that political divide. Honestly, I’m not trying to be cute: What’s so hard about that?  Why are we shutting this down? Left and right, are ideological arguments about how to run a state. That’s all they are. They are not a right or wrong, or good and bad. It’s which one do you think has greater efficacy? That’s it. And then you try one and if that doesn’t work out, you vote it out, and you try again with a different way. That’s a process. But we’ve made it into ‘good and bad.’ We made it into a moral issue, and it’s fucking idiotic … I personally attach some of this to social media.”

That doesn’t mean that we won’t hear hot takes that attempt to turn this film into a war against one side or the other. It just means the director’s intent is to bring us together, not to tear us apart.

I can’t wait to see it. It hits theaters in April.