This Movie is For:
- Fans of tense, chaotic war films that never let up
- People who like movies where you leave feeling heavier than when you arrived (not from popcorn, from those depressive feels)
This Movie is NOT For:
- Those who are looking for an action film poking fun at political division
- Anyone who wants to breathe during the 1hr46m runtime
A Brief Review With No Spoilers
Alex Garland is a master of tension. Anyone who has watched 28 Days Later, Sunshine or Ex Machina knows this. What’s interesting is the consistent way he generates unease. In Civil War, Garland tells an apocalyptic tale that feels closer to reality than anything he’s made to date. It’s harrowing, it’s haunting, and it’s sobering, but it’s the moments of silence between the action that make this film memorable.
In Civil War, sound is felt by its thunderous presence and absence. Scenes of violence and atrocity are contrasted by the constant shutter click of the film’s focus, wartime journalists. Whenever a beautiful picture is taken, the film freezes to show it as a still and cuts the audio. In the next minute, gunfire and bombs are back, rattling and shell-shocking the audience. Civil War captures the sudden and chaotic feeling of its American battlefield by offering brief respites from tension and ripping them away.
This never-ending cycle of silence and violence is also what sets Garland apart as a filmmaker. In his movies, I always want to stay in the quiet moments between the action. He gives us a vision of what life on the edge of terror can look like and the small moments of beauty that come with it. We see the found families on the edge of a warzone and the quiet moments that keep them going. These moments never last long enough and they add a complex emotional layer that makes this so much more than a war movie.
The story is buoyed by brilliant performances from Kristen Dunst and Wagner Moura, beautiful filmmaking, and sound design. Dunst’s numb photographer, Lee, who has been in warzones since childhood feels like an analogy for a country that’s been under constant strain and at the end of the day can do nothing but film it. By contrast, Moura is an adrenaline junkie that only feels alive under fire. The slow degradation of his thrill-seeking is one of the movie’s highlights.
Civil War doesn’t start slow and ramp up, it’s tense all the way through until its abrupt ending. Much like real-life conflict, no bow gets tied around the end of this film; it simply ends when it’s done. While some might find it unsatisfying, to me, it seems like the only appropriate way to finish this story. I thoroughly enjoyed Civil War. It cements Garland as one of my favorite filmmakers/writers of all time. It’s heartbreaking, too close to home, and worth seeing on a big screen.
5/5 – Silence and violence combine for a potent and sobering cautionary tale
More information on how I rate films here.
Ashton Macaulay 