As the president (Nick Offerman) clings to a third term, forces from West Texas and California advance toward Washington.
The Florida Alliance also opposes the existing fascist regime. In total, 19 states seceded.
The country is as devastated as it is divided. Armed battles are raging almost everywhere. The roads are deserted and the highways are destroyed. Communications systems barely work. Gasoline is scarce, as is drinking water. Buying a gas station sandwich costs US$300. The Canadian dollar has a great value – one of the only laughs in the room. This is how director and screenwriter Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation, Men) imagined a contemporary civil war in the United States.
Her country is a war zone and, as she has done many times before, photojournalist Lee Miller (played with restraint and force by Kirsten Dunst) documents the conflict. His fellow reporter Joel (frantic Wagner Moura, the Pablo Escobar of the series Narcos) and she decided to leave New York to go to Washington to interview the president, who has not given an interview for more than a year.
The 238-mile (383-kilometer) journey, which normally takes about 4 hours by car, has now reached 857 miles (1,379 kilometers) because there is no longer a safe direct route. Sammy (reassuring Stephen McKinley Henderson), Lee’s old friend – in both senses of the word – asks if he can accompany them to Charlottesville, Virginia. On the morning of departure, a fourth passenger was in the back. Budding war photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny, as spot-on as in Priscilla), who met his idol the day before, convinced his male partner to take him on board.
Their road trip strewn with obstacles is both disturbing and magnificent. The British filmmaker has reconnected with his compatriot Rob Hardy for photo direction.
We go from a hellish shootout in broad daylight in an urban area to another that lights up the night in the distance as the quartet stops to rest. We return to the road lined with lush vegetation before the path is suddenly cut off by a duel between snipers.
A little further on, we witness another meeting under the hot rays of the sun, this one even more anxiety-inducing, with a soldier played by the excellent Jesse Plemons, husband of Kirsten Dunst.
The power of ignorance
The origins of the war are never explained. The political affiliations of the opponents are unknown. We don’t always know which side of the battle is on. We understand that some Americans, including Lee and Jessie’s parents, manage to live in peace. We even discover a small town that seems to have escaped its time. How is all this possible?
These unanswered questions reinforce the immersion in a world that resembles our own except for a few crucial details. Without these points of reference, we adopt the neutral point of view of the four journalists.
On this subject, Kirsten Dunst’s character can sometimes seem insensitive. Her stoicism is explained as a self-defense mechanism, a shell that she has built for herself. His adrenaline-crazy colleague is less credible in our eyes, but completes this old professional couple well. Cailee Spaeny is extraordinary as the go-getter who gets back up every time she gets hit hard. All four characters paint a nuanced portrait of the war journalist’s profession, but most moviegoers will see Civil War through Jessie’s sometimes tearful but sharp gaze.
The action in the last act is breathtaking. While a superb soundtrack from Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow (Portishead) – two other regular collaborators of Alex Garland – as well as astonishing songs from Silver Apples, Skid Row and De La Soul punctuated the story up to that point , the sound of bullets, tanks, helicopters and explosions as well as the cries of soldiers are all that is heard at the end of the course.
The ending will not please everyone, but will not prevent Civil War to inhabit us for days.
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war drama
Civil War
(V.F.: Civil war)
Alex Garland
With Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny
1:49 a.m.