Tag: nick offerman

directed by Alex Garland

Each time I see a new film labelled as A24 baby I’m stamping my feet like an overly excited Minion. It’s because I know that there’s a huge possibility I’ll enjoy the film. However, when I learned about “Civil War”, I wasn’t much tempted because I generally try to avoid films about all kinds of wars. Being sensitive isn’t the thing, rather my allergy to films that do not stand out. Of course, we have “1917” which is still highly underrated, in my opinion, but generally war movies don’t impress me that much. Still, I had a day off so I thought “let’s spend 2 hours in a dark room watching how people are fighting with each other”. It was either that or another romantic comedy, so the choice was obvious. If you expect “Civil War” to be that typical action film, don’t even bother. Indeed, we have shooting and running scenes, but they are just the background to what’s put in the spotlight here. We get to meet Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a photojournalist who specialises in documenting wars. She’s a middle-aged woman who’s seen more than you can probably imagine, so she’s obviously struggling with all those pictures in her head. However, doing such job you cannot really sympathise or reflect too much – you simply take photos and try not to be hurt yourself. She’s working with Joel (Wagner Moura), a journalist as well, and at some point they are joined by Lee’s old friend and mentor Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) who asks for a lift to Charlottesville where the Western Forces are preparing for a big offensive. However, the two colleagues will continue their journey and wish to reach Washington, D.C. to interview the president (Nick Offerman). Everybody knows that he will soon be killed considering the situation, so Lee and Joel have a goal to be the last and only people to ask and photograph the president before his final breath. Unfortunately, even though as press they are neutral in the conflict, they cannot feel safe everywhere. What’s more, they are joined by a young photojournalist who’s just starting her adventure with this profession and begged the team to take her with them. Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) is in her early 20s and she’s still not immune to war pictures, which makes her character a great contrast to Lee and her years of seeing pure evil, fear and helplessness in a human form. What I absolutely loved about this film’s narration is that the story is told from the perspective of journalists who don’t try to get involved, don’t try to support any of the sides – they are just working. And they are so focused on their job that we may even think they don’t realise what’s happening, although we know they do, but in order to stay sane, they have to remain unbothered. In the world (or in this case the USA) where people are fighting for their lives, the press is worrying about not overexposing their photos or getting some quotes that would sell on TV. I guess that’s what creeps me out the most – not the fact that such civil war may actually happen, but the fact that people like journalist will stay “professional” and continue doing the same job. You may say that medical staff also has to stay professional in such circumstances, but to me it’s a different kind of approach. We need the doctor or nurse to treat us, but do we really need journalists to take photos of group shooting, hanging captives or abusing the innocent? Perhaps we do. Perhaps their job is extremely important since thanks to those photos we may receive some more or less true information. But it doesn’t change the fact that doing such job is terrifying from the psychological point of view, because you’re not yourself – you’re at work and it’s like being stuck in your own body. Your mind might be screaming “run away!” or “help those guys!”, but your body presses a photo camera button and moves forward. So if you think this is a simple action film, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. To me it’s a very specific psychological horror, whose background is a potential civil war that may occur in the USA or anywhere else. Speaking of that, this film also reminds us how ridiculous it can be – people fight for the sake of fighting, not even willing to reflect why and what for. There’s this moment in the film (I hope you won’t mind this little spoiler) where Joel asks some soldiers why they’re shooting if they don’t know who the other person is. And one of the men says “We’re trying to shoot them, because they are trying to shoot us” (might be slightly different, but that’s what I remembered from the cinema). End of story. Eye for an eye, without any hesitation. There are also those who stay away pretending like nothing wrong is happening. On the one hand you may say they are ignorant, on the other – if they can’t change anything, why should they agree to be in danger instead of protecting themselves? And there are journalists trying not to lose their minds documenting such reality. This film asks a lot of questions and you have to deal with them on your own. I hate it and love it at the same time. Thank you A24 for nurturing this pathological relationship between us. Please, continue.

My rating: 8/10
S.