Spoilers below.

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Tyler: Norman, tonight we’re discussing a film that wasn’t on my radar until a couple of months ago. I’d seen a headline or two about Civil War—best I barely gathered, it was divisive—but it wasn’t of any particular interest to me.

A trusted film-worshiping friend, then, surprised by texting me fresh from a Civil War screening, noting with real gravity the picture’s immediacy and how it recalled Children Of Men. Now, Children Of Men is one of the finest films I know, a beloved personal favorite, equally admired by this friend. This got my interest piqued.

Whether Civil War reaches the Himalayan heights of Children Of Men, well, we can discuss that in a bit. What this whole saga means personally, then, is that I was coming into Civil War almost completely blind beyond that allusion. I was a blank slate.

What an experience it was to see this movie, then. It is a visceral, unflinching live wire of a film. Having watched it now twice, I don’t quite know how to summarize the thing in recommending it—much like The Zone Of Interest, it feels like a picture that all of us should see once.

Norman, after this screening, I was on you a bit to see Civil War so we could discuss it in this forum. I believe it’s a remarkable and fascinating achievement, worthy of deep reading.

All this said, then, I hope I didn’t lead you astray.

Norman: I was fascinated by Civil War, but I left the theater with a lot of questions rolling around in my mind. 

We live in a time of high polarization. There are actual politicians, the wackiest among them, calling for a “national divorce.” Texas secession groups have gotten more popular over the years. The idea of a real civil war, while still absolutely unfathomable to me, is somehow in the Overton Window of national dialogue. In that context, how do you make speculative fiction about a near-future civil war in America? That was the question that got me wanting to see Alex Garland’s movie. But when I drove home from the screening the other night I still wasn’t quite sure how you make a movie about a possible near-future civil war.

Tyler: A history-buff pal called the movie “asinine.” He also assured that any actual civil war would go nuclear. That was bracing.

Norman: I’m wiping the sweat off my forehead as we type.

Tyler: Did the events of the film strike you as realistically possible?

Norman: I don’t know. What are the events? The civil war of Civil War struck me as being quite nearly a MacGuffin. We’re told how the country is divided up, but we aren’t given a lot of clues as to exactly why. The movie is far more focused on the complexities of journalism.

I describe it as a “war photographer coming-of-age road trip” movie.

Tyler: I’ve been saying it’s a war movie, a road movie, and a horror movie all at once.

I give the film a bit more heft in its depiction of the civil war, through matter-of-fact gestures—a man being brutally tortured turns out to be a high school classmate of his captor—as well as moments of horrible shock, such as “Hong Kong? China.” I think there’s a wealth of political commentary here.

But, I also agree that it’s about journalism, specifically visual journalism, and how we process the ghastly things that occur on film in this world.

“It’s a great photo,” says Kirsten Dunst’s ace veteran photog of her unwanted protégée’s shot of a medic unable to help a man bleeding out. Great?

And yet it is. It, in the context of this narrative, is a great photograph. What does that say about us?

Norman: Yes, that was what I found most compelling about Civil War. There’s a basic question about all journalism: can you actually be objective? Is there a way to truly document without prejudice? Is the act of documenting something important to the degree that you would refuse to intervene in a more tangible way in a horrific situation? 

These kinds of questions get at what makes Civil War engaging. But I was frustrated by how vague the civil war of the movie is. I was hoping for a real sense of ideological conflict for the characters, but that doesn’t quite materialize.

Tyler: They’re more jazzed by the prospect of witnessing history than by the possible end of the war. Well, that’s what’s implied when a character watches night fire from a safe distance and declares that it makes him hard. For them, the action is the juice.

Norman: In a lot of ways this movie doubles back to Neil Postman’s tech philosophy on the news as entertainment. The war of the movie has no apparent meaning other than as a source of potential danger and work.

Tyler: Could not one say the same though, of say, Saving Private Ryan? That is a war movie of both depth and spectacle, but it doesn’t lean into the ideological divides between the warring factions. It’s soldiers battling soldiers on the ground. I mean not to put Civil War in Private Ryan territory, but I think if we’re going to boil down one into danger and work, then we gotta look at both. Does that make sense?

There are discussions of strikes on American citizens, the dissolution of the FBI. Militias are committing genocide with free hands. The Western Forces will eventually go to battle with the Florida faction, as Sammy grimly notes. Humans destroy humans. The story of all war.

Norman: I think it does, but my frustration comes from the fact that Garland is only flirting with actual controversy. Surely he knows that the very thought of a movie about a hot civil war in the United States would garner controversy and blowback, but the only risk the movie takes in that direction is the title itself. 

Civil War is a good film, but if you’re going to take that conceptual tack, then you have to own it and embrace it. Much of the meat of the movie could have been transported to almost any given war zone. You could have set this movie in Ukraine or Gaza and I don’t know if it would have been terribly different.

Tyler: The shock of seeing such atrocities on American soil feels like an explicit warning, to me. I mean, this is a movie that concludes with a nasty gun battle—in the hallways of the White House between rebel forces and the secret service—which the rebels punctuate after victory by executing a United States president. That’s provocation right there.

I’m giving Garland more credit than you. I do think he’s up to something darkly impressive here.

Norman: Maybe I’m having a difficult time focusing in on those elements. The movie is structured as a coming-of-age, teacher/student drama. Those moments of provocation in the White House are overshadowed by the movie’s central drama of Jessie’s constant inability to get out of the way and the relationship with her mentor, Lee. 

I will give Garland credit, though. The photograph of rebel soldiers posing with the president’s corpse did make me think of how a terrorist group might display a kill proudly. The connection was jarring.

Tyler: Nobody wins in this victory.

Do you feel the way I do about Dunst’s performance? Simply tremendous. She owns the screen.

No shade, Kirsten, but I didn’t know you had it in ya.

Norman: Yes! She is cool and quiet, a really subtle and effective turn. 

I, on the other hand, knew she could do it. Despite her reputation as Spider-Man’s girlfriend and the cheerleader from Bring It On, Dunst has done good work when she’s collaborating with serious directors. Her portrait of Marie-Antoinette is great! Did you see her in Fargo? She’s got the chops. I think at this point in her career she seems intent on playing good roles and doing what she wants.

Tyler: She did drily note that she’d do another superhero movie in a second, because they pay big and she’s got kids and a live-in mother. I appreciated her honesty.

Norman: I’m sure most actors would take those roles!

She’s good, though. I’ll be more than happy if she keeps doing movies like Civil War or Power of the Dog.

How about her husband! Jesse Plemons burns a hole through the screen!

Tyler: Terrifying. Doesn’t rant, doesn’t rave.

Norman: You have to give props to the costume designer, though! That bleach blonde. Those shades!

Tyler: That scene is what I’m talking about, though—what does going to the movies for that kind of thrill say about us? The second time I saw that Plemons sequence, I knew what was coming and I still felt terror and shock. Am I then part of the problem? Paying for the perverse joy of seeing war crimes portrayed? Hell, at least the journalists leading the movie are getting paid, not losing money.

Norman: That’s a good moral question to ask ourselves. I do think you go to the movies to feel, at least to some degree. They are more visceral as a storytelling medium than novels. But the thing I ask of a movie is that it be thoughtful in the way it approaches subjects of violence, terror, and horror. If you’re going to take on serious subjects, then don’t be a dope about it. Civil War, despite some of my aforementioned misgivings, is not a braindead movie.

Tyler: It displays landscapes scarred by fire as horizons of real beauty. Sammy passes while blissfully watching that spectacle through a car window. And, sure enough, the image of the scorched earth is mesmerizing.

Norman: One thing the movie doesn’t do is engage with how their photographs work once published. The spectacle is mesmerizing, but in the real world of war photography the spectacle is also informative and can change political sentiments, as war photos did during the Vietnam War.

Tyler: Well, if the interlude in the bucolic small town is to be believed, much of the population isn’t even looking. As Lee and Joel rib Sammy about the decaying New York Times, we’re left to wonder how effective their own work, ostensibly for Reuters, is.

Not for nothing that both Lee and Jessie have parents hiding from the conflict and the news.

Norman: It is amazing that they have a sense of purpose at all!

Tyler: Lee notes with weary sadness that her photos from wars abroad were messages to American viewers. “Don’t do this,” she was trying to say. Nobody listened, or everybody missed the point.

Norman: And perhaps that’s Garland’s message with this movie? Don’t do this. 

At times I do wonder if America isn’t getting tied in knots right now for no good reason. It isn’t that we don’t have meaningful problems, but we live in a political and media ecosystem that encourages us to demonize each other and to come up with the craziest ideas possible instead of real dialogue focused on actual solutions. If we ever were to go to war with one another, my big question would be: for what?

Surely we don’t want to give up on something as historically great as the American project for whatever petty cultural grievances we might have or some infantile loyalty to he who shall not be named.

Tyler: Fear, hatred, misunderstanding, and self-loathing. A few of the reasons people are always at war with each other.

I’ve only recently come to know the phrase “media industrial complex.” What an apt callback. In this world, where profit dominates, yep—Lee and Jessie and their compatriots have no place.

Norman: Final take.

Tyler: Bring it.

Norman: I liked Civil War. Good performances, some great scenes, and some interesting ideas about journalism and the act of capturing the terrible make it worth seeing. I am still frustrated with how the movie doesn’t commit fully to its conceptual premise, but that might be a small complaint in the end.

Tyler: I think we both found a lot here to admire, as a piece of art that wants to do a whole lot with under two hours of material. It’s not Children Of Men, but it’s a worthy descendant. Whether I expected it or not, that’s high praise.

Norman: I wonder how this movie will play in 5-10 years.

Tyler: Movies may, like humanity, be things of the past. Enjoy Civil War—the film, not an actual one—while you can!

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