Visually exquisite – content-wise hollow

FILM: Alex Garland has gradually built up a very interesting CV, both as a screenwriter and director. With highlights such as “28 Days Later”, “Sunshine” and “Ex-Machina” as screenwriter, where he also acted as director on the latter.

His low point, in my opinion, can be said to be the very upbeat “Annihilation”.

Naive and unreal

The states of California and Texas have for some reason joined forces to overthrow the incumbent president (Nick Offerman). War photographer Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and journalist/war junkie Joel (Wagner Moura) plan to drive into the Washington war zone in hopes of getting an interview with the apparently fallen president. Basically quite naive and unreal all the time Washington is in the middle of a war zone.

There is, however, no obstacle, and along with Lee somewhat reluctantly, veteran war correspondent Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and photographer freshman Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), who is incidentally a big fan of Lee. Armed only with a camera and bulletproof vests, they willingly drive into the war zone of a dystopian United States in the middle of a brutal civil war.

This is the starting point for Alex Garland’s “Civil War”. Something that should be easy to deal with, and frighteningly more realistic than ever in today’s unstable political climate in the United States. Because with an interesting ensemble of actors and an exciting director with a captivating plot, everything should be in place for an engaging and terrifying critical look at a tattered and fragmented United States, where the political extremes escalate to the worst imaginable outcome.

But such a recipe eludes director and screenwriter Alex Garland for all it’s worth.

High production value

The film’s dramaturgy works like a road movie, which slowly but surely takes us through an escalation of unpleasant and alarming scenes up to a powerful and extremely well-made military battle scene in Washington that is experienced as realistic as it can be. Then with the exception of how closely the film’s protagonists get to follow a military unit in combat, which of course would never have happened.

The production value is great, and feels very natural as the film’s four-leaf clover moves further and further into the war-torn USA. The most chilling moment comes from actor Jesse Plemons, playing a soldier devoid of empathy and humanity as he and his co-conspirators fill up a mass grave with corpses while capturing one of the four-leaf clovers and evaluating it the person’s further fate.

Technically, the direction of the actors and the visuals are super solid. The acting is elegantly toned down, and the characters appear very reflective and lifelike. Photography is very impressive with some exceptionally beautiful film scenes. The editing gives the actors room while being tight and efficient. The soundscape is intense and active with room for silence. It generates a pleasing contrast to the visuals. The use of music, on the other hand, is at times strange and in some places out of place. Use of certain songs is experienced against its original purpose. Instead, the use of music appears almost involuntarily sarcastic in parts of its presentation.

Missing message

The biggest problem with the film, however, is the film’s script and lack of willingness to go deeper into the conflict. The whole thing, when one has summed up the film’s high intensity, is rather superficial and hollow. The characters appear enigmatic, stranded in an action that never provides any explanation.

The more one goes into the depth of the film, the more questions arise without any kind of willingness to answer them on the part of the film. The film’s conflict seems somewhat pointless, as neither side is illuminated. What and why things have escalated into a brutal civil war remains a mystery.

Who the four characters are also seems to be uninteresting in the eyes of the director. Only a superficial view of some characters who find themselves in a frightening situation, in a civilization that is crumbling at a frightening speed, is conveyed.

It’s a shame, because there are so many interesting aspects this film could have illuminated, had it had the courage to express or at least dare to dabble with some kind of controversial views. Then it could become a film for the history books along the lines of “Apocalypse Now”, which actually shares many similarities, but which is on a completely different cinematic level.