Alex Garland’s powerful and surprising film starring Kirsten Dunst is in cinemas

The long-awaited and much talked about film debuts in cinemas throughout Italy Civil Warfilm directed by the English director and screenwriter Alex Garland which imagines a United States no longer such, torn apart by a new, bloody civil war. Who is Alex Garland? Well he’s the one who signed the bestseller as a novelist “The last resort”from which Danny Boyle he then made the film The Beach with Leonardo Dicaprio. It was thanks to Boyle that Garland made his debut in the world of cinema: at first only as screenwriter (of films like 28 days later or Sunshinebut also of Do not leave me by Mark Romanek) and then how director: his films are Ex Machina, Annihilation and Menand what they have in common is thinking about the present from gender angles, and talking about how the representation and perception of reality is a fundamental theme of our time.
As we have already told you in our review of the film, Civil War which debuted in first place at the American box office, beating out competition from blockbuster like new Ghostbusters And Godzilla and Kong – is a film of great cinematic and political power, and also very surprising for the intelligent and far-removed gaze with which it tells its story. A simple and linear, yet stratified, story in which there is space for action as well as feeling, also for an analysis of the contemporary which certainly concerns politics but, even more, the role and the drifts of contemporary journalism .

Civil War: the official plot and trailer of the film

In an America on the brink of collapse, through wastelands and cities destroyed by the explosion of a civil war, a group of reporters embarks on a journey in extreme conditions, risking their lives to tell the truth.

The geopolitics of Civil War: why there is a civil war and what are the forces at play

We said it. Garland, considering the times of real, violent polarization of our societies, and considering the type of film he wanted to make, was little interested in establishing easy equations, taking inspiration from real events, and identifying in the most extreme tendencies of the Trumpian and populist right-wing clear and explicit adversaries to fight. The thought of Civil War is broader and more complex, and also very careful not to expose itself to easy and ideological criticism.
Garland deliberately does not explain clearly what the reasons were that led the United States to a civil war. You simply take note of a situation, which is the following. Following, probably, the policies and decisions of a President in his third term (we know that this is now prohibited by the XXII Amendment of the American Constitution), the country was torn apart. Some states remained loyalists, but in the northwest some reunited in what is called the “New People’s Army”while Florida, with some neighboring states, has created a similar “Florida Alliance”. The toughest and most determined military clash, however, is fought against the loyalists a new federation that brings together California and Texas, two states that have always been politically polar opposites, defined as that of the Western Forces. It is precisely in the attempt to get to Washington before the imminent invasion of the new federation, and to be able to interview for the last time the President probably responsible for the situation, that the protagonists of the film set off.

Who are the journalists protagonists of Civil War

Garland’s film opens in a New York on its last legs, where water reserves are scarce and tension among the population, divided between loyalists and revolutionaries, is sky high. In this context we meet Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst)a famous and award-winning war photographer, veteran of the front, who works for the Reuters paired with the journalist Joel (Wagner Moura). It was their idea to make the journey, dangerous and full of possible deadly pitfalls, from New York to Washington for what would be the scoop of the century: to interview the President believed to be responsible for the Second American Civil War before his deposition. They talk about it, the evening before leaving, in the hotel where all the press are staying, with an old friend and mentor of both of them, Sammy (the character actor Stephen McKinley Henderson), veteran journalist of New York Times, who convinces them to take him with them. In the same hotel, that same evening, he shows up Jessie Cullen (Cailee Spaeny), a young aspiring photographer who idolizes Lee and who, precisely by Lee, had been saved a few hours earlier from a dangerous attack. Despite Lee’s reluctance, Jessie will also end up being part of the group that will cross numerous states, and war and guerrilla zones, to get to Washington for what they believe is an appointment with history.

The soundtrack of a film (also) on the road that tells the story of America

Along the long and tortuous journey that will take them from New York to Washington, which will be faced aboard a spacious four-wheel drive off-road vehicle, Lee and all the other protagonists of Civil War they will come across a series of situations full of tension and dangerwhich will give them – and us viewers – a profound and disturbing sense of alienation in seeing situations of war and guerrilla warfare descended, set in American territory, peppered with abundant atrocities, which are usually linked to other geographieswhich are those of recent wars and not of world history: from Vietnam to the Middle East, passing through the former Yugoslavia and Ukraine.
To make this contrast even stronger and more evident, Alex Garland has filled his film with a series of songs typically linked to the American imagination, and examples of its many cultures, which work in relation to the images with truly exciting results from the view of the cinematic rendering, as when a violent firefight between opposing factions, in the middle of what appears to be an abandoned school, is associated with the notes of “Say No Go” by De La Soul, in one of the unforgettable moments of this remarkable film. This is the official playlist of the songs used by Garland in the film published on Spotify by A24.