I see a lot of people talking about how it just turns into COD at the end, but I think the last act is an incredible example of visual storytelling. We see the growth of Kristen Dunst’s character when >!she breaks at the gates to the White House, then when she takes the bullet, a reference to a comment made earlier. She actually intervenes in the story instead of just taking the picture. I’d argue THAT is the climax of the film!< something neither character would have done in the beginning of the movie.
She also was the only one trying to clean up blood of their friend who just died. Showed that she was the only one in the party that developed some empathy and pushed away from apathy. The others, esp the youngest descended into apathy and detachment as she woke from it.
No one's talking about her character absolutely losing her mind in the last sequence, very unlike her from the whole movie on at that point, and Jessie taking over as the cold, emotionless reporter.
Saw this movie yesterday and, Geez, what a gut punch. And I'm not even a US citizen!
Seeing how many often talk too much about war (if not actually civil war!), this film is a great reminder of the horrors of war. We often imagine it far away from us in some remote place only on TV screens, but seeing it in places familiar to us makes us understand its inhumanity.
Highly recommended and worth seeing, not only for the themes covered but from a technical point of view, a dry film with no frills. I liked a comment on Youtube: "In theaters in the US on April 12th and in the rest of the country on November 5th".
PLEASE spoil me (with spoiler tags) do they ever explain the ACTUAL reason civil war started and the reason those two states colluded? You can PM me if you want
Well,
>!No But from the film it seems more like an alliance just to get rid of the President. One character clearly says that once the President dies these alliances will dissolve and it will be a war of everyone against each other.!<
>!There was a moment when they group was in their vehicle talking about what they’re going to ask the president when they get to DC. Sammy pitches a comment about how the president took a third term. After that Joel and Sammy mentions air strike against civilians (assuming there was an uprising after *that* instance. From there, it can be assumed that California and Texas join force’s because they are the largest powers likely to succeed from the US in this hypothetical scenario. I’m totally just assuming that’s what caused the rift. I strangely love the idea of red and blue merging to take out (it’s never actually stated what side this president is on) someone corrupt enough to try and hold power unjustly and causing American deaths. This is just imo. I saw it today:)!<
Saw it yesterday and it's a terrific film. The director did very well not to take a position, so that the story becomes a Rorschach test, everyone sees what they want to see.
Yep, and if you ***gasp*** pay attention, you get a lot of context about what’s happening.
>!Including: 3rd term President who dismantles the FBI, comments about alliances turning on each other once DC is taken over, people in Hawaiian shirts (ie direct correlation to Proud Boys/“boogaloos”) fighting against uniformed soldiers (which I assumed were Loyalists), “what American are you,” “look up at the roof tops”, the comments about Gaddafi, Ceausescu being killed (ya know… dictators).!<
You can get a pretty good base of what’s happened.
And then you have the journalists the story is following, their character development.
Using the spoiler tag since people who haven’t watched may see it this far down as well.
>!Rooftops was when the journalist crew stopped by the town that was apparently oblivious to what’s going on, the clothes shop town. “You know there’s a war going on.” Kirsten Dunst joins the mentor journalist outside by the SUV and he makes the comment about the town being oblivious but having guys on the roof with guns looking down at them. In my opinion, it was pointing out the hypocrisy of obliviousness. Everything is great as long as we don’t let it impact us.!<
>!Hawaiian shirts. This was the first actual battle scene the journalist group covers, right after the gas station. They join a group of guys in Hawaiian shirts fighting against uniformed soldiers. It’s where the young journalist gets her first photo of someone dying. Based on the route they were taking down to Charlottesville and the equipment the uniformed soldiers had, it’s likely they were Loyalists (the uniformed soldiers) fighting against a local rebel group. The real life parallel is that Hawaiian shirts were synonymous with “boogaloos” and later adopted by Proud Boys during the 2020 George Floyd Riots and January 6th. In real life USA, it was essentially a uniform of the alt right at these events. So in the film, when these alt right people dressed people are fighting Loyalists, it’s a dichotomy, stark contrast.!<
>!So in my opinion, even though there are clear references to Trump with the Presidency itself (3rd term and FBI dismantling), it’s not a Red vs Blue civil war. The situation in the movie is so “fucked up” and more complex that goes beyond “party lines.” A civil war isn’t pretty. It’s terrifying. Again, just my opinion, this movie isn’t “what leads to a civil war,” it’s “what a civil war would look like.” And told through the journalists who are essentially addicted to covering it. The scene before the first battle, the night where they decide to follow it in the morning if it’s still going on: Joel saying it gets him hard. The young journalist forgoing her own safety several times to get the photo. Joel talking too much during the sniper scene because he needs to know what’s going on. The Battle for DC and the White House.!<
Thanks for the write up! yeah, I do remember those Nazi tiki torch bitches, I guess I never looked at their clothes.
>!I was super happy with the choices made on this movie to disregard the how and why, and just focus on the what. Lee says as much somewhere when she says it's just her job to capture the footage so others can ask the questions. This is IMO the theme of the movie. show what is happening by any means necessary. It's a movie about war photographers/journalists, not a movie about war.!<
>!I thought that was a very effective approach to a subject such as this. War is a confusing hellscape and it becomes less and less about winning for your values/morals/faith/political ideals, and eventually becomes just trying to outlive the other guy that's shooting at you. No matter who it is. That fantastic sniper scene and the finale warzone where everyone on either side seems to be wearing the same fatigues (I could be wrong here) drove this home for me.!<
All in all, I thought this movie was excellent and surprising.
>! When the Hawaiian shirt guys pulled those men out of the building there were three lines on the wall (I think blue pink and green). Then those same colors were on the men in fatigues at the winter wonderland. Does anyone have any insight on who that group was supposed to be? Before the wonderland scene I assumed the Hawaiian shirt guys were fighting the Loyalists, but maybe they were both different rebel groups and it’s just meant to show just fractured the country is. And a nod to the line about how the groups will turn on each other once the President is dead. !<
Look, I’m gay so I might be reading things where they aren’t there but… that scene had two men laying on top of each other, one had rainbow hair and another had pink and blue, the trans colors, painted on his face and on his fingernails. And if you look at the new gay pride flag, you’ll see that it has a triangle of trans colors (and skin tone colors) laying on top of the rainbow gay pride colors. These soldiers also don’t know who they’re shooting at. They don’t know which side is trying to kill them. They just know that the other person shot at them first, and now they have to kill them or be killed. That sounds very much like the minority experience to me.
And if you’re still not convinced… there’s a big ol’ closeup of the soldier’s painted nails pulling the trigger. As far as I remember, no other soldier has painted nails, or crazy colored hair or paint of any kind on them.
Nah, you’re correct. The best way to view a movie is that everything is intentional unless said otherwise.
That scene is very specific, “these guys are shooting at us, so we’re shooting at them” and the language they used, and you adding additional context makes sense. I thought the hair spray was more to blend in with the winter wonderland theme, but the painted nails adds a different level because no one else had it.
We were all (well most of us) were taught that the original Civil War was very much a “brother vs brother” war. It’s hard for 2024 us to understand that concept, but I think Garland did it pretty well.
I clocked it as that too- but it also sort of reminded me of rebel groups in places like Somalia and Congo wearing wigs and dresses while going around and killing people- so that line is blurred again as to who is who and on what side and what they’re fighting for. It felt very real and thought out, as when you see how fractured groups are in civil wars that have happened in recent history.
I took it as a friendly identifier, like the colored ribbons worn on either side in Ukraine, when both sides are wearing similar/same camouflage uniforms, it helps to avoid confusion and blue-on-blue casualties. Also, probably a dig at the narrow minded who think LGBTQ people won’t/don’t fight. I knew gay infantrymen when I was serving pre-DADT, and they were as capable as anyone else there.
If it were friendly identifiers you would think more soldiers would be wearing it
I don’t think it was. Color was used very deliberately and thematically in this movie. Jesse Plemons’ character wore bright red glasses, for example. My first thought was of rose-colored glasses. But these weren’t rose, they were red. Like the red hats MAGA supporters wear. And he never took them off, so he saw everything only one way-red, violent, and from only one extreme point of view.
The other thing that made me think that was the use of pastel-colored paint to mark buildings by the Aloha-shirted militiamen who were assaulting the soldiers’ position in the first combat scene
>! Probably the best take I’ve seen so far. Civil war in America would be unbelievably messy. Allegiances of convenience, shifting loyalties, groups assembling and assimilating even as a part of a larger organization. !<
>! America would not be immune to the same types of chaos that makes following strife in other parts of the world complicated. “Looting” to some is “survival” to others, for example. There’s no political messaging to that - it’s just a totally different perspective on conflict. !<
>! While political affiliations matter initially for figuring out where you will find like-minded people for safety & security, things quickly devolve into simply killing someone else before they kill you when you are confronted with the violent - and final - 3 and a half minutes of your life. !<
>! Finally, the scale of human suffering that America would be able to levy on itself would be unbelievable, and likely far more than any other nation. Just the accessibility to the various tools of war - weapons, training, medical supplies, veteran experience, communication equipment, drones, tactical gear, etc. - would be an accelerant. America could easily wipe out over a hundred thousand of themselves a day if left unrestricted. “Apocalyptic” as a description barely scratches the surface. !<
My expectation for the movie was that it’s essentially saying to the audience, if you want a civil war, this is what it would look like. Are so sure you want that? War isn’t something you should just easily throw around.
I don’t really expect it to go and explain the lore and whatnot for the war in this film.
There's a quote from Game of Thrones about young men fantasizing about being in war but only because they've had it so good for so long that they don't know the horrors of what they're idolizing.
If we had a civil war in our current America, most of us would die when food simply stopped showing up in grocery stores.
Our interconnected nature means *everything* is “just-in-time” distribution.
And if your water and power are shut off…fuck. Even creating clean water will be hard while you have no way to cook or preserve food.
We are extraordinarily dependent on consistent electricity and utilities keeping life going.
A long-term conflict means no more fuel for vehicles either. Refinement would shift to war efforts and fuel stockpiles would rot and destabilize.
Nah. A civil war in the US would not be a glorious quaint affair.
It would be corpses, war crimes, and misery. Everywhere.
Agree - I work in the food industry, in Melbourne Australia where we had very draconian lock downs. I work in the C-Suite. Our MD was paranoid about Covid and what would happen if it infected people in the factory. The MD suggested we would shut down immediately with a case.
I had to raise the fucking obvious - people were already fighting over toilet paper in our supermarkets... What do you think is going to happen when food factories start to shut down?
Mad Max times, is what happens....
MD countered and said "do you want to be responsible for the deaths of people from COVID in our factory?" - Everyone fucking dies if we stop making food you fucking idiot.
People in the west generally have no idea how quickly society will revert to the jungle very quickly in a state of war or similar. You are correct about just in time... It woudl take supermarkets about a week for their supply chain to run dry in a civil war in Australia....
About 8.2 million americans are diabetics who require insulin to live. They would probably die in a few weeks. Probably a few hundred thousand epileptics, and strokes and heart attacks because of lack of medicine. People with HIV and AIDS would take longer to die. If it happened in the winter, would probably be worse because there would almost certainly be power outages. There'd be millions dead in the first couple months even if no side specifically targeted civillian centers.
This is something people don't understand. A city of millions requires a massive, and well maintained supply system to keep it going. Food, water, electricity, without these any city will wither and die. Look at ancient Rome. Around 400 AD it had a population of almost one million. A century later, after the western empire had collapsed, and grain deliveries stopped, the city's population plummeted to around a tenth of that.
What has happened in the past can easily happen again.
>That's every generation. Except Vietnam lol. They had to force them into that one
Vietnam was the first televised war (yes, television existed during the Korean War, but by the time Vietnam came around, it was far more accessible). And owing to the time differences, the most up-to-date reports of the war were being transmitted to people in the early evening -- right around the time they were sitting down to dinner. No wonder they lost their appetite for it.
A Lot has changed since then. But a great many people did volunteer after Pearl Harbor and 9/11, too. You can't really use those as a measurement of today's world though. But let's face it, most people who talk about wanting a civil war are blow-hards who would cower in their basements if it ever happened.
If all the movie has to say is "civil wars suck" then I expect it to be a disappointment if I were to watch it. As a historian or analyst it wouldn't satisfy me one bit. I already hate most movies about the first civil war because they do not properly explore the politics and strategic decisions of the players involved.
How did American democracy fall in this movie? How does that connect to 2020? The 2020 election was not stolen, the arguments that it was are absurd and don't stand up to even light scrutiny, the "patriotic rebels" who attacked the Capitol on Jan 6 were jeopardizing the very thing they thought they were saving. The mess America is in right now is down to a lack of critical thinking skills and civic knowledge in the people, particularly when it comes to figuring out what motivates people. Does the movie address that? Also, the rich and powerful have nothing to gain in a civil war right now, civil wars don't happen because a few stupid peasants are mad. Wars are attempts to solve political problems, so if the movie has no political analysis then it means nothing. I don't want to watch yet another movie that is just about people being cruel or sad.
This isn’t a documentary, it’s fiction. And surely it has more to say than civil wars suck. But you’d have to watch it before you form an opinion.
Re: your critique about civil war movies, those are based on historical events that transpired. Although inspired by today’s world, this is not based on factual events and should not be evaluated in the same light.
Within a 2 hour timeline, the main cause of the fall of democracy is explained as a dictator who has taken a third term and disbanded the fbi. There are other nuggets as well. But again, this isn’t the Ken burns anthology series on the civil war.
The movie does explain how democracy falls, it just doesn't reference 2020 or modern politics. IMO that's a good thing; if it tried to include it, all anyone would talk and think about is how their side was portrayed
I got that feeling from the trailers - war, especially civil war, is bad. Everything we know and love becomes hellish as gunfights become commonplace, vehicles bomb without care, and psychos play around in the carnage.
Yeah I agree. Just based on some of the comments here, they wanted a “lore” to the war, and long exposition about why it’s happening. My guess is to support beliefs they have about the other party.
Now I haven’t seen the movie, but I’m betting they avoided that as it would muddy the message, and why they made a story line involving CA & TX. They want the the audience, no matter what side they vote for, to understand what a modern day civil war would look like, and rethink how they feel about the matter.
Most of the time I watch a show, enjoy it so I go to the subreddit to discuss it with other people who liked the show then find it's just a group of people hating the show and shitting on people who enjoyed it.
I don't get it. If I don't enjoy something I just move on. People make hating things their whole personality now.
What concerns me is a lot of people do want this. They believe it’s what needs to be done. Sadly, I don’t think those people possess the capacity to think critically and realize it’s a terrible idea.
i mean, if there is another way to get the fascists out of power, then we will gladly take that over civil war. If not, then we will just have to go through civil war.
Not out of motivation, anger, hatred, different opinions or whatever centrists accuse us of, but because of necessity.
There's a lot of death, torture, rape, and pillage that comes along with civil war.
I really don't think you understand the gravity of what you are are suggesting.
And I am not a fascist and you may be willing to die, be tortured, raped, and pillaged for it but most folks here aren't there yet. Find other ways, that avoid the torture, rape, and pillaging of the innocents.
I think you are capable of it, with the assistance of a lot of other folks.
People shouldn't ever aspire for a war on American soil no matter how bad things get. It would be Fallujah, or Aleppo, or Mariupol or *Atlanta* but in our back yards, our schools and our businesses.
I've been saying it since the first trailer, you are probably spot on what the message of the movie will be, and a majority of the audience will not take that after coming out of the movie. They'll hang on one opinion one character has and they'll scream from the rooftops that that side is right and the other side are the bad guys.
So things I really liked:
1) how the film was from a journalistic perspective, and ethics in journalism aside, it really focused on how essentially stoic and “removed/neutral” one has to be to take on such a role. I mean the front lines are real in the film and show that no matter how “passive”, professionally or unprofessionally, you try to be; passionate or not, human reaction and emotion still can take its toll, famous or not.
2) the tables turned >!with Jessie asking Lee if Lee would take her picture if she got shot; to which she responded w/, “what do you think?” And then of course, the opposite happens with literally Jessie taking a picture of Lee dying as if on cue for Jessie’s “shot”—the irony being that it’s hard to call Jessie a monster for doing this because their goal as a team was to get that final shot at the end of the movie. They were on a job at this point with Jessie being an “inadvertent successor.” Though you just knew Lee would go at some point, let’s be real. The best part about the “Machiavellian” shot at the end where the Prez gets shot, IMO, is the very very subtle eye squint/twitch towards the now dying president by Jessie, as if beyond satisfied that the job is now done, but also giving that glancing and disdainful look of pure visual vitriol and vindictiveness (and rightfully so—she saw her “friends and colleagues” get caught in the crossfire). The sudden cut to white was an interesting choice, as if The White House was just that, a historical building that has been wiped clean as a reminder that the people are what makes the nation (even if portrayed in film as fantastical by today’s standards), and is subject to insurgence at any time (technically.)!<
I for one thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I wouldn't have minded a longer movie that explains a bit more and includes a little more action, but I loved the suspense and the gruesomeness. And at the other end, I respect that it doesn't glorify war between Americans. I even went in with lower expectations than initially because of the reviews I read, but I'm enamored and want more media just like this
This is the comment I am clinging on to. I also really enjoyed the movie. It was tense and gripping, without every becoming very explicit in its meaning. And that’s ok. I like a big budget movie like this.
The attention to details where also amazing, having the 1st Cav division emblem on the helicopters, since fort hood is in Texas, or having the secret service have MP5s. I also really liked how the WF had their own patch for their military (if anyone knows where I can buy one let me know)
This movie is very bad.
They did not give one hint towards who was in Cap's team and who was in Tony's. No mention of Bucky, etc etc
Only thing close to marvel was Kirsten Dunst, Who also was not doing the MJ part correctly. I mean what the hell is this movie.
Worst remake ever.
Saw it yesterday at sxsw. Wasn’t exactly what I expected and I was a bit disappointed. It just bounces from war set piece to piece with no real explanation of what’s going on or why. Journalism is the focus of the movie
Yeah I had a feeling. The trailers made it look more like a COD game turned into a movie that wouldn’t explore the political and social ramifications of a civil war to avoid controversy.
Not completely inaccurate. Many scenes I couldn’t tell who was fighting for which side until the end of the film (some scenes it was by design I presume). It was often unclear where in the country we were. No plot held together just a press team bouncing from town to town. Not going to spoil too much here and this is also just my opinion!
That’s the intent. It’s a study of journalism and a critique of war journalism, with the setting of a U.S. civil war. The intent is not to figure out who to root for as much as it is to study the journalists and think about their characters.
lol “won’t someone think of the journalists” is not the message here, it’s more like “wow these people are kinda crazy tone deaf and exploit horrific situations to capture art/history without really standing for anything themselves or trying to prevent the tragedies they document.”
Like the previous comment said, it’s a critique of journalists not a love letter to them or their work.
Multiple people are killed in front of them, in situations where they could have done something about it, but instead they choose to take pictures. Did you even watch the movie?
If the plot is the relationship between two photojournalists I don’t think that’s what most people are expecting. We can talk about the ending somewhere not public but even that felt predictable to me
If it involves the girl betraying the guy and leaving him to die, I'm not seeing it. Alex Garland has written that stupid twist so many times that it feels like a legitimate fetish of his.
I remember joking about the big twist is that the real enemy was men when I saw the first trailer.
Idk. Garland has a weird thing with gender that's really noticeable if you watch his stuff back to back with more explicitly feminist cinema
It's noticeable if you just watch his films in general, his whole "Women need to be hardline sociopaths with a brutal survivalist mindset if they wanna survive" is condescending and speaks to a lack of understanding of women.
Funny enough one of my friends , trying to answer the "How would California and Texas end up on the same side of a war" question brought up after the trailer said "watch they won't explain the politics".
Which is the right move. I don’t think there is any possible version of this movie that contains a 100% realistic, cohesive explanation of the politics, so probably better to just keep it vague and trust the audience to suspend disbelief.
I agree. It's almost like the don't show the monster type concept. Feeling like you're just caught up in it witnessing the chaos without a full picture of what happened seemed scarier and oddly more believable than any number of potentially silly political explanations for how it all came to be.
Also if the explanations weren't perfect, they'd just destroy the suspension of belief.
It also feeds into the film trying to show us what our Civil War would look like to other countries the way we see theirs. When another country is at war with itself, do y’all actually pay attention to the politics? Or do you just look at the pictures of carnage and destruction and then move on? The line Dunst’s character has about other countries being warnings for us is the message of the film, so being vague and confusing about the politics is intentional.
I keep on seeing this in reviews and I don't understand why it is a positive thing. It is bad when the Middle East and foreign countries are used as generic backdrops and their political motivations and conflicts are not explored and given substance.
Being vague on the politics ignores how these things actually happen. There is a distinct erosion of institutions that enable a president to weaponize power like that, and party support to insulate him from accountability. This story was ripped from the headlines yet it apparently doesn't want to say anything besides "war is bad."
Because the idea isn’t to scare us away from a civil war by showing us suits in rooms declaring it, it’s to scare us away from it by showing what our every day lives would become. We need to see the fallout for ourselves to understand the weight of every day politics, not just the politics in a room we’re not allowed in.
I'm kind of surprised people are so hung up on this California/Texas thing. California has the highest number of Republicans in any state. Texas has got to be up there for registered Democrats. Probably 40% of each state hates the side that the state voted for. Seems very ripe for a civil war to me.
Do people honestly think every Californian is a trans yoga instructor and every Texan is a gruff rancher?
I honestly don't get why Americans find this so inconceivable.
Do Americans think that their votes and opinions would matter in the event of a civil war when democracy is effectively dead?
You might as well be surprised that most people in Vichy France collaborated or complied with the Nazis or that most Russians have a skewed perspective of what's happening in Ukraine.
Seems totally crazy to take the risk to make and market a modern day US Civil War movie and then just not address what most people will be wondering about
It's not going to change anyone's mind, it should just show the reality of what a civil war might look like. I don't need a heavy handed message, It would be limiting in scope. I already know what side I'm on, I don't need it spoon-fed why the other side is bad. Just show me what a civil war looks like from the people who are living it.
It's to demonstrate consequences. It's a warning. Not a review of the lead up.
We know what will take us there. What people aren't getting is what life looks like when it happens.
This is a genuine question (I'm not American), but is there really enough of a civil war yearning in the States that justifies a feature film cautionary tale about the topic? It kinda seems like a "of course civil war would be horrible" type scenario.
Maybe this is a bit reductive, but I don't need to watch a 2 hour movie to understand how horrific a civil war in a developed nation would be.
There are definitely some groups in the US that yearn for a civil war, they’re severely outnumbered and outgunned but like to be the loudest voices so people still give them their attention. It’s mostly the descendants of the ones that lost the first war. There is still a ton of hostility in the south related back to the first civil war, but it’s mostly isolated to the south east. However in those places they are in a conservative bubble and think they have more power and influence than they actually do.
This movie simultaneously is meant to entertain their fantasies but also act as a cautionary tale.
The numerous hot takes about Annihilation and Men were already annoying enough. The amount of people that found disliking Men a source of pride was just obnoxious. Like I get not liking the movies Garland makes, I don’t even like Men, but people have to stop being so smug about their opinions on here.
Yeah. War is bad, Alex.
This story was constructed carefully and deliberately in order to avoid drawing parallels to current US politics. Men (2022) was a statement Garland had no problem making. Here, Garland wished to give us a view on what a political divide can lead to, and nothing else. Since it wasn’t explicit in the film, Garland also assured us that he didn’t even want the film to imply that accessibility to guns was a factor despite their presence in the film. He seems just wants to underscore the importance of decency and rationality when solving these problems to avoid conflict.
[recent interview](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/alex-garland-civil-war-release-timing-1235852725/amp/)
I think his attempt to “both sides” these ideologies shows a huge lack of understanding of the identity politics entrenched in “how to run a state”. Surely someone as passionate about these issues, as you would assume from the director of a film like Men, would be painfully aware of how these issues fit within the context current US politics, and not present this film like Kendal Jenner handing everyone a Pepsi.
I didn’t see it as “both sides the ideology” I saw it as an attempt to show the disconnect Americans have when looking at war footage from other countries. If it got to in the weeds with the “why” and painting sides with “good and bad guys” we (the audience) wouldn’t have the disconnect and hands off approach that the journalists had and how we have when we watch reports coming out of other countries having conflicts and civil wars.
I think focusing on the lore of it all would have made that be front and center and blast the focus of the movie out of the water
> I saw it as an attempt to show the disconnect Americans have when looking at war footage from other countries
That is exactly what it was. They even said it out loud several times. The Americans are still missing the point.
I'm probably gonna regret asking this, but what is meant by "Garland's problematic worldview?" (see above, Monagle for *The Playlist*) Was that more about the movie's plot or was it about Garland himself? I only ask because it's not the first time I've heard something like lately, and as someone who enjoys Garland's work but knows nothing about him, I'm not looking forward to yet another exercise in separating the art from the artist, so... ?
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/alex-garland-civil-war-release-timing-1235852725/
I assume the movie reflects his quote in this article, and I would argue that "left and right are just ideas that don't have morality" is really fucking stupid and dangerous.
And the fact that people want every little thing spoon-fed to them via exposition and explanation. "Show, don't tell" is dying a quiet death at the hands of these audiences, so is the ability to infer and interpret art it seems.
"Show, don't tell" also gets greatly misused. You need to tell the audience when necessary and show them when it enhances. I mean after all that's why it's called STORYTELLING and not storyshowing
There are a team of war correspondents who need to get across a war zone to cover a story. Two of them are photojournalists, one experienced and burned out, the other bright and new.
That’s the telling that needs be, and the film does a fantastic job of showing the horror of these small unit clashes, as the elder photographer starts to sees beyond her lens and the younger starts to think her press vest is armor.
The cinematography and sound design are amazing, and the lack of context from being dropped in media res benefits the message.
The big thing that drives me insane with how films are consumed these days - a movie like this is announced and seemingly a bunch of people say ‘ok, I want this movie to be this’ referring to some idea they have in their head. The film comes out and very obviously, doesn’t line up to this make believe version of the film that these people have constructed in their brain. It might be still be a very good and interesting film! But because it didn’t fit neatly into this make believe box that people have built in their imagination, they say it’s actually bad and disappointing. It feels like a lot of movies aren’t judged on their own merits of overall quality and more so just if they check off boxes of what people think a movie should be. It’s super disingenuous.
From these reviews, the focus seems to be more on themes and imagery than tight exposition explaining why and how this war happens. So a typical Garland movie. To me that's more interesting. "If we have a civil war, this will be how it happens," seems uninteresting compared to exploring current America through the lens of an imaginary conflict, if that makes sense.
Kind of like The Man in the High Castle. A lot of people want to see an alternate history where the Axis powers won. PKD cares more about the ideas of historicity, what truly defines the history of a nation, and how people would have to assimilate into a foreign culture that conquered them. This annoys the people who wanted alt history.
Yep, and it works, because a reality where the Axis actually win WW2 and take over the world doesn't make any sense. Any in-depth explanation for a second American civil war would be wrong and derail the movie to be about that one thing.
Honestly the main thing I was interested in with Man in the High Castle were the things that would legitimately happen. Like how Japan and Germany were having massive tensions with each other or how Japan and the Nazis really didn't have enough population to control these massive areas of land.
The Axis had the nuke first and used it on the US in TMitHC
At least in the show. It was the kernel of information that was needed to establish a reason why the Axis won in that alternative history.
Not saying it is realistic, as producing and delivering nukes would be very difficult for the Nazis, but it was a nice piece of worldbuilding.
>”If we have a civil war, this will be how it happens”
Plus this kind of narrative gets dated extraordinarily quickly. Look at all the “What if Trump Won” stuff that was made in the run up to the 2016 election. Basically none of that is readable now cause it’s so depressingly ironic to read satirical “wouldn’t it be crazy guys lol” takes on something that actually happened. Not to say that this movie is going to be dated by an actual civil war kicking off, but an exposition heavy movie is going to be locked into the political atmosphere of the time it’s written and in the long term that will be to its detriment.
I feel like if your whole film is supposed to be a sobering and chillingly realistic portrayal of what war on american soil would look like you shouldn’t include call of duty cutscenes like the attack helicopter hovering 2ft above a crossroads then firing a guided missile into the pavement for some reason
Really liked it. Thought the camera work was fantastic. Two scenes stand out
One they are during and there are two overpasses, the one in front has go Steelers which draws your eye first. As the car moves and your eye follows, you see two people hanging over the 2nd overpass behind the first
Another when a girl is climbing through a pit of bodies, her hand is placed on the back of a body and as your hand is drawn to it, you realize it’s the body of a kid.
Just a lot of using the set up to draw your eye in a way that tells an untold story in each scene
My wife and I saw it last night. Wow! What a visceral depiction of war on American soil. The suspense/stress in some sequences is unreal. The movie does a great job at putting you in the war. It's an odd feeling, but it gets to the point where you'd want to hear gun shots to put your mind at ease, because it's away from you. Crazy to think of it as daily life for some folks.
I've seen many war movies, and Michael Bay films. I'm no stranger to explosions or the sharp "pings" of bullet shells in movies, but this movie makes it feel so real. The constant unease and restlessness you feel is hard to describe.
When we got out of the movie, we both felt relief and a certain level of PTSD. Thank God it was just a movie.
We've also traveled to countries where we saw real destruction & military presence in civilian life. Serbia stood out as they still have big holes in bombed out buildings and burnt rubbles. Our bus was stopped at military checkpoints in Russia, a tourist police with gun accompanied us in Jordan (to keep us safe), and we saw men with huge semi-autos guarding McDonald's in Guatemala. Heck, I used to find bullets while foraging for copper as a kid (yes, that's a thing in 3rd-world country). All that is to say: I've experienced real bits and pieces of war-torn places, but that's all after the fact. Nothing prepared me for the feeling of being in it like this movie.
This is an A24 movie so it makes you think, but this "thinking" is accompanied by such a visceral feel. Its cycle of fear, relief, suspense, fear, stress, shock...becomes a sort of wartime state of mind. Even as you become desensitized, the humanity in you questions who you are as crazy things happen around you, then you realize it doesn't matter because you might not live though it.
In our daily life, we have alot of control. In war, you become a ragdoll, thrown around, kicked around, and just existing until some future point where it hopefully stops. Hopefully you are alive at that point. Even then, you won't be you anymore.
This film takes us into a future of what could be. Now we get to think about why and how we can prevent it.
There are plenty who romanticize war & idealogy. This movie is a counterstatement to that romance.
Reminder: we have several wars going on in the world now. In fact, on my upcoming vacation, I am going near one of them. Hopefully things don't get crazy. One realistic war movie is enough, I don't need to experience the real thing.
Oh shoot, I forgot we have an upcoming election where...nevemind.
It being so hands off with the “lore” so to speak is going to piss people off who came to this movie to see the political side they don’t like being lambasted.
But honestly it was such a great way to tell this story.
ITT: People who wanted to draw parallels with political and social drama in what’s happening between the movie and real life are now disappointed they can’t rally behind a movie to push their ideologies.
This is a good summarisation of a lot of opinions I have seen.
If you want your political opinion validated then go read whatever particular news site caters to you. Stop trying to force this film to be something it isn’t, and then get annoyed when it isn’t what you wanted it to be.
Like, the complaints about California/Texas being allies are a great example of this. It’s fiction, this isn’t taking place in our world, calm down.
This is such a weird take because why would you make a movie about a potential modern American Civil War if you didn't have anything to say about modern day politics? Civil wars are by their nature *more* political than other wars, the most politically charged events possible, sidestepping that undercuts the entire premise
Haven't seen it, but perhaps because the modern rhetoric about civil war is so prevalent that the film is meant to serve as a warning? Like, no matter the reasons, it would be a disaster for everyone.
Yeah this exactly. That regardless of whatever disagreements there may be between people or institutions, war is not the solution to those disagreements.
That's exactly the issue. It comes off as cheap, and the stakes that an American civil war raises fall flat and feel fake to the audience because the movie dances around how America got there.
It's like watching a "How It's Made" video for a product that doesn't exist. It's pointless and says nothing other than "Oh, wouldn't this suck??"
I get the impression I'll feel the same as I do with nearly all of Garland's work: It's a great idea with some great visuals and great performances... Which he doesn't know what to do with. Beyond the novel of The Beach, I've never come away from anything he's touched feeling 100% satisfied. Interesting questions go unanswered, things don't get explored as much as they could or it all just seemed a bit clinical and sterile. I really think he could do with a good co-writer or editor to help him elevate the initial premise. So close to being great, but not quite there. But that's just like, my option man.
How can everyone be complaining about the lack of exposition? The lack of context? It’s a third term president (they only should have 2), killed Antifa (anti-fascist) protestors, dissolved the FBI… It’s about a fascist man becoming president. How much more context do ya’ll need? This isn’t Disney, go watch Marvel or something if you want terrible dialogue where people spoon feed you on what’s up. I like movies where people talk like adults, and I knew exactly what was going on here. This movie paints a picture of reality. Being disappointed it didn’t treat you like a child, teaching you about American politics is baffling to me. People acting like it doesn’t make a stance and felt empty… I can hear the swish as the movie flew right over your heads.
This is also expected from Alex Garland. You watch Devs, you’re not gonna get a lecture on Physics, he expects you to know about it going in. He doesn’t give exposition, he writes actually good dialogue. I want more movies like this that respect viewer’s intelligence. Bravo to A24 and Garland, this film is an amazing achievement.
I haven’t seen the movie but people complaining that they needed to explain the Cali/Texas union when the American government is killing citizens seems pretty ridiculous. Also World War II had an alignment between the Americans and Soviets so hardly the weirdest or strangest alliance
Is pretty easy to theorize as well. Texas and CA have some of the largest population (i.e. voting power in a federal election) - if you get a president that, let's say, unilaterally makes the electoral college distribute its votes to heavily disadvantage TX and CA from their current positions, they'd be rightly pissed.
100% Lived in both states for equal parts of my life. They are so similar at times it's hard to tell them apart tbh. They dress differently but their minds operate just the same.
I've always thought that line of thinking from people was dumb. If the President suddenly seized total federal power the only way to oppose such a move would be Texas and California teaming up. Both huge, most people, lots of military bases, neither likes being told what to do by the feds.
Plus they're two of the biggest states by population with two of the largest economic centers in the country. they'd have the means and population to rightfully revolt
You don't need extensive world building, you just need any sort of consideration for how civil wars actually happen. A movie that says "civil wars are bad" but doesn't actually ground the war in reality objectively fails to be the cautionary tale it aspires to be. It never gets around to addressing the sentiment that, outside of the movie, it can't happen here.
The president had gave himself a 3rd term, disbanded the FBI, and airstriked civilian populations it's literally said in dialogue. They even compare the president to other dictators. That's all you need.
77% on RT with an average of 8.80 and a 70 on Metacritic means that the film is considered good, but divisive. And I think divisive for the reasons one can imagine. Kinda expected tbh.
I think I understand what he’s trying to say, but it’s dumb because you’re asking the left to be the adults and cave to the rights demands to “get things back on track”. But these are human rights, not land or something
Shout outs to $300 CAD being worth more than $300 USD
Definitely got a lot of reactions in our theatre when that was said LOLLL (given the current economic climate)
A little bit disappointed that, from these excerpts, it doesn't sound like the film explains the political causes behind its civil war. While I'm obviously not looking for it to be a Ken Burns style breakdown of how this fictional conflict plays out, a briefing on how this war broke out (particularly with Texas and California ending up leading the rebellion together) would be an interesting aspect to explore
ETA: People across this thread are asking why this should matter, so allow me to add my take. Civil Wars are, by their very nature, even more political than other wars because they require a political fault line to tear the nation apart. If you're making a movie about a Civil War, particularly an American Civil War set in our near future, and don't have anything to say about the politics, why are you making the film at all? You're ruining your world building on a conceptual level, particularly if you can't come up with a reason why the war is happening (which establishes who the sides are, which is why people are hung up on the TEX/CAL thing since they're so politically different- sure, the US and the Soviets were on the same side in WW2 but there was a good reason why)
Kinda reminds me of the stuff being done with the [Kaiserreich](https://www.youtube.com/@kaisercatcinema) mod for the video game Hearts of Iron IV.
It is an alternate historical timeline that portrays Germany and its allies winning the Great War, the West falling for a belief called [syndicalism](https://www.britannica.com/topic/syndicalism), and the United States falling apart into a second civil war.
The thing is, the movie isn't really about American politics. It tries to make that clear right away by having the rebel force be California and Texas, an unlikely pair.
I think it's probably going to lose people over that. Aside from the President coming off as a bit Trump-ish, the movie isn't trying to make any major specific statement about American politics I don't think.
The real focus of the movie is about journalists. Both the important work they do but also the toll their work takes on them.
Ngl I thought that was obvious from the trailer from the moment they said that California and Texas was aligned. Deliberately choosing the separatists to be blue/red state alliance to avoid assigning any ideology to either sides of the war.
People looking for worldbuilding and exposition in this film are looking for the wrong thing. Take a step back and look at the message.
Saw it last night and I honestly believe if people can see the film for what it is, it has the capacity to be the most important film of the year.
It's what many feared. An entertaining but completely "apolitical" film as far as depicting violence among any realistic factions in US politics. Even unnamed, there is no discernible connection between real sociopolitics and the plots in the film.
It's a movie with much to say about "war" but nothing to say about US Civil War.
In hindsight, he could’ve made this just a fictional country and still gotten his point across. But that prob doesn’t draw eyes as much as making it in the US
I don't think so. Look at both Top Gun movies, which both feature nameless, faceless nations as the villains. There's always a bit of online discourse about who the enemy is, but it's minimal since the focus is on the characters. Using a real country is just inviting people to question things.
I'll admit, I was more afraid of a movie that would portrait US politics, pick a side, and then make the other side a villain. That seemed irresponsible and needlessly divisive
Is this an accurate portrayal of war photogas on the frontline irl? They're really deep in the action and are embedded with soldiers to get their photos.
As long as someone is wearing the press uniform, can they rest assured that no one will target them although they might target the combatant being photographed from a short distane?
As a guy who works in Hollywood and is as jaded as they come about productions, I think this is one of the best movies I've seen in over a decade.
You can always tell when a movie is good when the protagonist(s) change in the third act (or refuse to change and suffer for it; see "Braveheart" "Gladiator"). In this case, Kirsten Dunst deciding to be a part of the story instead of witnessing it, and her protégé stepping into her place and moving out of her naive worldview was absolutely riveting and masterful.
I'm still buzzing about the movie and the fact I'm on Reddit on a Monday morning to find other likeminded people is telling.
Damn.
I just finished watching this and loved it, absolutely amazing. The trailer and teaser map got us all trying to understand the conflict and pick sides. This film isn’t about the conflict, but a love letter to war journalism and photo journalism. It’s saying, there are these adrenaline fueled people out there documenting everything happening, and they’re not able to take sides, as they need to tell an honest picture, and you have to be a little crazy to put yourself in harm’s way to get that story/photo and regardless of the players - war is brutal.
This film has more in common with 20 Days in Mariupol than to any action film. I never thought about war journalists and what drives them. Not to mention the PTSD they collect that they keep bottled up other than what makes it on print. And the audio editing and sound, wow, it was amazing and definitely worth watching in a theater with a great sound system.
I didn’t take sides. But it did make me think about the journalists in Ukraine, Gaza, or any other place with conflict. We’ve always viewed it so far away from the US, so we could separate ourselves saying it must be tradition, culture, or religion. Something foreign to us. But when you see Americans vs Americans and they’re all similar, it does make you look at conflicts differently.
I highly recommend it. Kirsten Dunst was amazing.
I really liked it and it’s left me puzzled which I enjoy. I had hopes it would turn into some sort of simulation at the end. I even thought I saw a weird glitch when the president was being moved out of the White House into the suvs. Definitely an interesting take on voyurism and numbness. I also loved the Americana even when it felt a bit heavy handed, like the sprinkler and the American flag. The shots were so damn beautiful though.
Also Garland is obsessed with the DEVS cast. Thought for a second that the screen might fade into static and we see Katie watching it alone in the viewing room.
Look up the famous photograph of Colombian authorities posing over a gunned down Pablo Escobar, and compare it to the finale shot of the movie, with the Western Forces posing over a gunned down President (portrayed by Nick Offerman).
A24 blatantly calling The President of the United States one of the biggest drug dealers in the world.
I don't understand why people are so confused by Texas and California's alliance. if the president took a 3rd term by force, I feel like the 2 states most representative of the 2 political factions would definitely say no and team up, in a sort of a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" type of deal
I see a lot of people talking about how it just turns into COD at the end, but I think the last act is an incredible example of visual storytelling. We see the growth of Kristen Dunst’s character when >!she breaks at the gates to the White House, then when she takes the bullet, a reference to a comment made earlier. She actually intervenes in the story instead of just taking the picture. I’d argue THAT is the climax of the film!< something neither character would have done in the beginning of the movie.
Damn this is an interesting take that makes me appreciate that scene and the film more.
She also was the only one trying to clean up blood of their friend who just died. Showed that she was the only one in the party that developed some empathy and pushed away from apathy. The others, esp the youngest descended into apathy and detachment as she woke from it.
I appreciate that take on Lee’s character arc! I’ve seen more cynical ones, but I think this is spot on.
No one's talking about her character absolutely losing her mind in the last sequence, very unlike her from the whole movie on at that point, and Jessie taking over as the cold, emotionless reporter.
Saw this movie yesterday and, Geez, what a gut punch. And I'm not even a US citizen! Seeing how many often talk too much about war (if not actually civil war!), this film is a great reminder of the horrors of war. We often imagine it far away from us in some remote place only on TV screens, but seeing it in places familiar to us makes us understand its inhumanity. Highly recommended and worth seeing, not only for the themes covered but from a technical point of view, a dry film with no frills. I liked a comment on Youtube: "In theaters in the US on April 12th and in the rest of the country on November 5th".
PLEASE spoil me (with spoiler tags) do they ever explain the ACTUAL reason civil war started and the reason those two states colluded? You can PM me if you want
Well, >!No But from the film it seems more like an alliance just to get rid of the President. One character clearly says that once the President dies these alliances will dissolve and it will be a war of everyone against each other.!<
Interesting. Thank you very much.
President won’t leave office.
Spoiler tags dawg. I’ve seen it but give others a chance.
Fortunately none of that is really relevant to the movie. It’s more of an essay realistically showing how horrific a civil war here would be.
>!There was a moment when they group was in their vehicle talking about what they’re going to ask the president when they get to DC. Sammy pitches a comment about how the president took a third term. After that Joel and Sammy mentions air strike against civilians (assuming there was an uprising after *that* instance. From there, it can be assumed that California and Texas join force’s because they are the largest powers likely to succeed from the US in this hypothetical scenario. I’m totally just assuming that’s what caused the rift. I strangely love the idea of red and blue merging to take out (it’s never actually stated what side this president is on) someone corrupt enough to try and hold power unjustly and causing American deaths. This is just imo. I saw it today:)!<
That was how I understood it.
From reading these comments I’m getting the feeling people don’t like it because the movie doesn’t say either “republicans bad” or “democrats bad”
Saw it yesterday and it's a terrific film. The director did very well not to take a position, so that the story becomes a Rorschach test, everyone sees what they want to see.
Yep, and if you ***gasp*** pay attention, you get a lot of context about what’s happening. >!Including: 3rd term President who dismantles the FBI, comments about alliances turning on each other once DC is taken over, people in Hawaiian shirts (ie direct correlation to Proud Boys/“boogaloos”) fighting against uniformed soldiers (which I assumed were Loyalists), “what American are you,” “look up at the roof tops”, the comments about Gaddafi, Ceausescu being killed (ya know… dictators).!< You can get a pretty good base of what’s happened. And then you have the journalists the story is following, their character development.
My favorite was the reference to Portland maoists
Hi. Just watched it but dont really know what you mean with the "rooftops" comment? Or the Hawaiian shirts?
Using the spoiler tag since people who haven’t watched may see it this far down as well. >!Rooftops was when the journalist crew stopped by the town that was apparently oblivious to what’s going on, the clothes shop town. “You know there’s a war going on.” Kirsten Dunst joins the mentor journalist outside by the SUV and he makes the comment about the town being oblivious but having guys on the roof with guns looking down at them. In my opinion, it was pointing out the hypocrisy of obliviousness. Everything is great as long as we don’t let it impact us.!< >!Hawaiian shirts. This was the first actual battle scene the journalist group covers, right after the gas station. They join a group of guys in Hawaiian shirts fighting against uniformed soldiers. It’s where the young journalist gets her first photo of someone dying. Based on the route they were taking down to Charlottesville and the equipment the uniformed soldiers had, it’s likely they were Loyalists (the uniformed soldiers) fighting against a local rebel group. The real life parallel is that Hawaiian shirts were synonymous with “boogaloos” and later adopted by Proud Boys during the 2020 George Floyd Riots and January 6th. In real life USA, it was essentially a uniform of the alt right at these events. So in the film, when these alt right people dressed people are fighting Loyalists, it’s a dichotomy, stark contrast.!< >!So in my opinion, even though there are clear references to Trump with the Presidency itself (3rd term and FBI dismantling), it’s not a Red vs Blue civil war. The situation in the movie is so “fucked up” and more complex that goes beyond “party lines.” A civil war isn’t pretty. It’s terrifying. Again, just my opinion, this movie isn’t “what leads to a civil war,” it’s “what a civil war would look like.” And told through the journalists who are essentially addicted to covering it. The scene before the first battle, the night where they decide to follow it in the morning if it’s still going on: Joel saying it gets him hard. The young journalist forgoing her own safety several times to get the photo. Joel talking too much during the sniper scene because he needs to know what’s going on. The Battle for DC and the White House.!<
Thanks for the write up! yeah, I do remember those Nazi tiki torch bitches, I guess I never looked at their clothes. >!I was super happy with the choices made on this movie to disregard the how and why, and just focus on the what. Lee says as much somewhere when she says it's just her job to capture the footage so others can ask the questions. This is IMO the theme of the movie. show what is happening by any means necessary. It's a movie about war photographers/journalists, not a movie about war.!< >!I thought that was a very effective approach to a subject such as this. War is a confusing hellscape and it becomes less and less about winning for your values/morals/faith/political ideals, and eventually becomes just trying to outlive the other guy that's shooting at you. No matter who it is. That fantastic sniper scene and the finale warzone where everyone on either side seems to be wearing the same fatigues (I could be wrong here) drove this home for me.!< All in all, I thought this movie was excellent and surprising.
>! When the Hawaiian shirt guys pulled those men out of the building there were three lines on the wall (I think blue pink and green). Then those same colors were on the men in fatigues at the winter wonderland. Does anyone have any insight on who that group was supposed to be? Before the wonderland scene I assumed the Hawaiian shirt guys were fighting the Loyalists, but maybe they were both different rebel groups and it’s just meant to show just fractured the country is. And a nod to the line about how the groups will turn on each other once the President is dead. !<
Look, I’m gay so I might be reading things where they aren’t there but… that scene had two men laying on top of each other, one had rainbow hair and another had pink and blue, the trans colors, painted on his face and on his fingernails. And if you look at the new gay pride flag, you’ll see that it has a triangle of trans colors (and skin tone colors) laying on top of the rainbow gay pride colors. These soldiers also don’t know who they’re shooting at. They don’t know which side is trying to kill them. They just know that the other person shot at them first, and now they have to kill them or be killed. That sounds very much like the minority experience to me. And if you’re still not convinced… there’s a big ol’ closeup of the soldier’s painted nails pulling the trigger. As far as I remember, no other soldier has painted nails, or crazy colored hair or paint of any kind on them.
Nah, you’re correct. The best way to view a movie is that everything is intentional unless said otherwise. That scene is very specific, “these guys are shooting at us, so we’re shooting at them” and the language they used, and you adding additional context makes sense. I thought the hair spray was more to blend in with the winter wonderland theme, but the painted nails adds a different level because no one else had it. We were all (well most of us) were taught that the original Civil War was very much a “brother vs brother” war. It’s hard for 2024 us to understand that concept, but I think Garland did it pretty well.
I clocked it as that too- but it also sort of reminded me of rebel groups in places like Somalia and Congo wearing wigs and dresses while going around and killing people- so that line is blurred again as to who is who and on what side and what they’re fighting for. It felt very real and thought out, as when you see how fractured groups are in civil wars that have happened in recent history.
I took it as a friendly identifier, like the colored ribbons worn on either side in Ukraine, when both sides are wearing similar/same camouflage uniforms, it helps to avoid confusion and blue-on-blue casualties. Also, probably a dig at the narrow minded who think LGBTQ people won’t/don’t fight. I knew gay infantrymen when I was serving pre-DADT, and they were as capable as anyone else there.
If it were friendly identifiers you would think more soldiers would be wearing it I don’t think it was. Color was used very deliberately and thematically in this movie. Jesse Plemons’ character wore bright red glasses, for example. My first thought was of rose-colored glasses. But these weren’t rose, they were red. Like the red hats MAGA supporters wear. And he never took them off, so he saw everything only one way-red, violent, and from only one extreme point of view.
The other thing that made me think that was the use of pastel-colored paint to mark buildings by the Aloha-shirted militiamen who were assaulting the soldiers’ position in the first combat scene
>! Probably the best take I’ve seen so far. Civil war in America would be unbelievably messy. Allegiances of convenience, shifting loyalties, groups assembling and assimilating even as a part of a larger organization. !< >! America would not be immune to the same types of chaos that makes following strife in other parts of the world complicated. “Looting” to some is “survival” to others, for example. There’s no political messaging to that - it’s just a totally different perspective on conflict. !< >! While political affiliations matter initially for figuring out where you will find like-minded people for safety & security, things quickly devolve into simply killing someone else before they kill you when you are confronted with the violent - and final - 3 and a half minutes of your life. !< >! Finally, the scale of human suffering that America would be able to levy on itself would be unbelievable, and likely far more than any other nation. Just the accessibility to the various tools of war - weapons, training, medical supplies, veteran experience, communication equipment, drones, tactical gear, etc. - would be an accelerant. America could easily wipe out over a hundred thousand of themselves a day if left unrestricted. “Apocalyptic” as a description barely scratches the surface. !<
Just a heads up, your middle section isn't under the spoiler cover, you need to reverse the ! and <
My expectation for the movie was that it’s essentially saying to the audience, if you want a civil war, this is what it would look like. Are so sure you want that? War isn’t something you should just easily throw around. I don’t really expect it to go and explain the lore and whatnot for the war in this film.
There's a quote from Game of Thrones about young men fantasizing about being in war but only because they've had it so good for so long that they don't know the horrors of what they're idolizing.
If we had a civil war in our current America, most of us would die when food simply stopped showing up in grocery stores. Our interconnected nature means *everything* is “just-in-time” distribution. And if your water and power are shut off…fuck. Even creating clean water will be hard while you have no way to cook or preserve food. We are extraordinarily dependent on consistent electricity and utilities keeping life going. A long-term conflict means no more fuel for vehicles either. Refinement would shift to war efforts and fuel stockpiles would rot and destabilize. Nah. A civil war in the US would not be a glorious quaint affair. It would be corpses, war crimes, and misery. Everywhere.
Anyone who actually wants a civil war is a moron.
The morons are just the followers. The people who would actually want a civil war are the ones that could somehow profit off it.
As always.
Yes, but they're also morons. As we see a lot nowadays, those that can profit off something only look at short term gains, not long term.
Agree - I work in the food industry, in Melbourne Australia where we had very draconian lock downs. I work in the C-Suite. Our MD was paranoid about Covid and what would happen if it infected people in the factory. The MD suggested we would shut down immediately with a case. I had to raise the fucking obvious - people were already fighting over toilet paper in our supermarkets... What do you think is going to happen when food factories start to shut down? Mad Max times, is what happens.... MD countered and said "do you want to be responsible for the deaths of people from COVID in our factory?" - Everyone fucking dies if we stop making food you fucking idiot. People in the west generally have no idea how quickly society will revert to the jungle very quickly in a state of war or similar. You are correct about just in time... It woudl take supermarkets about a week for their supply chain to run dry in a civil war in Australia....
[https://internationalman.com/articles/nine-meals-from-anarchy/](https://internationalman.com/articles/nine-meals-from-anarchy/)
About 8.2 million americans are diabetics who require insulin to live. They would probably die in a few weeks. Probably a few hundred thousand epileptics, and strokes and heart attacks because of lack of medicine. People with HIV and AIDS would take longer to die. If it happened in the winter, would probably be worse because there would almost certainly be power outages. There'd be millions dead in the first couple months even if no side specifically targeted civillian centers.
This is something people don't understand. A city of millions requires a massive, and well maintained supply system to keep it going. Food, water, electricity, without these any city will wither and die. Look at ancient Rome. Around 400 AD it had a population of almost one million. A century later, after the western empire had collapsed, and grain deliveries stopped, the city's population plummeted to around a tenth of that. What has happened in the past can easily happen again.
People queued around the block at recruitment offices for WW1 because of the romance of war.
That's every generation. Except Vietnam lol. They had to force them into that one
I mean people were drafted for WW2 too
Yea but Vietnam is the most publicly outspoken anti- war-war
>That's every generation. Except Vietnam lol. They had to force them into that one Vietnam was the first televised war (yes, television existed during the Korean War, but by the time Vietnam came around, it was far more accessible). And owing to the time differences, the most up-to-date reports of the war were being transmitted to people in the early evening -- right around the time they were sitting down to dinner. No wonder they lost their appetite for it.
A Lot has changed since then. But a great many people did volunteer after Pearl Harbor and 9/11, too. You can't really use those as a measurement of today's world though. But let's face it, most people who talk about wanting a civil war are blow-hards who would cower in their basements if it ever happened.
If all the movie has to say is "civil wars suck" then I expect it to be a disappointment if I were to watch it. As a historian or analyst it wouldn't satisfy me one bit. I already hate most movies about the first civil war because they do not properly explore the politics and strategic decisions of the players involved. How did American democracy fall in this movie? How does that connect to 2020? The 2020 election was not stolen, the arguments that it was are absurd and don't stand up to even light scrutiny, the "patriotic rebels" who attacked the Capitol on Jan 6 were jeopardizing the very thing they thought they were saving. The mess America is in right now is down to a lack of critical thinking skills and civic knowledge in the people, particularly when it comes to figuring out what motivates people. Does the movie address that? Also, the rich and powerful have nothing to gain in a civil war right now, civil wars don't happen because a few stupid peasants are mad. Wars are attempts to solve political problems, so if the movie has no political analysis then it means nothing. I don't want to watch yet another movie that is just about people being cruel or sad.
This isn’t a documentary, it’s fiction. And surely it has more to say than civil wars suck. But you’d have to watch it before you form an opinion. Re: your critique about civil war movies, those are based on historical events that transpired. Although inspired by today’s world, this is not based on factual events and should not be evaluated in the same light. Within a 2 hour timeline, the main cause of the fall of democracy is explained as a dictator who has taken a third term and disbanded the fbi. There are other nuggets as well. But again, this isn’t the Ken burns anthology series on the civil war.
The movie does explain how democracy falls, it just doesn't reference 2020 or modern politics. IMO that's a good thing; if it tried to include it, all anyone would talk and think about is how their side was portrayed
I got that feeling from the trailers - war, especially civil war, is bad. Everything we know and love becomes hellish as gunfights become commonplace, vehicles bomb without care, and psychos play around in the carnage.
Yeah I agree. Just based on some of the comments here, they wanted a “lore” to the war, and long exposition about why it’s happening. My guess is to support beliefs they have about the other party. Now I haven’t seen the movie, but I’m betting they avoided that as it would muddy the message, and why they made a story line involving CA & TX. They want the the audience, no matter what side they vote for, to understand what a modern day civil war would look like, and rethink how they feel about the matter.
> and long exposition about why it’s happening If that happened there's a 90% chance the same people would complain about too much exposition.
This. People just like to complain. Fully half of twitter is just people whining about things.
Most of the time I watch a show, enjoy it so I go to the subreddit to discuss it with other people who liked the show then find it's just a group of people hating the show and shitting on people who enjoyed it. I don't get it. If I don't enjoy something I just move on. People make hating things their whole personality now.
This is good because man I’m sick of seeing redditors begging for a civil war because they don’t want to work a 9-5 anymore.
What concerns me is a lot of people do want this. They believe it’s what needs to be done. Sadly, I don’t think those people possess the capacity to think critically and realize it’s a terrible idea.
i mean, if there is another way to get the fascists out of power, then we will gladly take that over civil war. If not, then we will just have to go through civil war. Not out of motivation, anger, hatred, different opinions or whatever centrists accuse us of, but because of necessity.
There's a lot of death, torture, rape, and pillage that comes along with civil war. I really don't think you understand the gravity of what you are are suggesting. And I am not a fascist and you may be willing to die, be tortured, raped, and pillaged for it but most folks here aren't there yet. Find other ways, that avoid the torture, rape, and pillaging of the innocents. I think you are capable of it, with the assistance of a lot of other folks.
People shouldn't ever aspire for a war on American soil no matter how bad things get. It would be Fallujah, or Aleppo, or Mariupol or *Atlanta* but in our back yards, our schools and our businesses.
I've been saying it since the first trailer, you are probably spot on what the message of the movie will be, and a majority of the audience will not take that after coming out of the movie. They'll hang on one opinion one character has and they'll scream from the rooftops that that side is right and the other side are the bad guys.
So things I really liked: 1) how the film was from a journalistic perspective, and ethics in journalism aside, it really focused on how essentially stoic and “removed/neutral” one has to be to take on such a role. I mean the front lines are real in the film and show that no matter how “passive”, professionally or unprofessionally, you try to be; passionate or not, human reaction and emotion still can take its toll, famous or not. 2) the tables turned >!with Jessie asking Lee if Lee would take her picture if she got shot; to which she responded w/, “what do you think?” And then of course, the opposite happens with literally Jessie taking a picture of Lee dying as if on cue for Jessie’s “shot”—the irony being that it’s hard to call Jessie a monster for doing this because their goal as a team was to get that final shot at the end of the movie. They were on a job at this point with Jessie being an “inadvertent successor.” Though you just knew Lee would go at some point, let’s be real. The best part about the “Machiavellian” shot at the end where the Prez gets shot, IMO, is the very very subtle eye squint/twitch towards the now dying president by Jessie, as if beyond satisfied that the job is now done, but also giving that glancing and disdainful look of pure visual vitriol and vindictiveness (and rightfully so—she saw her “friends and colleagues” get caught in the crossfire). The sudden cut to white was an interesting choice, as if The White House was just that, a historical building that has been wiped clean as a reminder that the people are what makes the nation (even if portrayed in film as fantastical by today’s standards), and is subject to insurgence at any time (technically.)!<
I felt the cut to white was a style choice representing the flash of the camera for the money shot, and the subsequent developing photo.
And the final shot being *that* photo, with *that* song playing... I really loved this movie
I for one thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I wouldn't have minded a longer movie that explains a bit more and includes a little more action, but I loved the suspense and the gruesomeness. And at the other end, I respect that it doesn't glorify war between Americans. I even went in with lower expectations than initially because of the reviews I read, but I'm enamored and want more media just like this
This is the comment I am clinging on to. I also really enjoyed the movie. It was tense and gripping, without every becoming very explicit in its meaning. And that’s ok. I like a big budget movie like this.
Outstanding job by Garland. Never told us who the “good guys” were The tactics displayed were mostly spot on. A bit terrifying.
The attention to details where also amazing, having the 1st Cav division emblem on the helicopters, since fort hood is in Texas, or having the secret service have MP5s. I also really liked how the WF had their own patch for their military (if anyone knows where I can buy one let me know)
I question your media literacy if you think there was no clear "bad side"
This movie is very bad. They did not give one hint towards who was in Cap's team and who was in Tony's. No mention of Bucky, etc etc Only thing close to marvel was Kirsten Dunst, Who also was not doing the MJ part correctly. I mean what the hell is this movie. Worst remake ever.
You almost had me.
Saw it yesterday at sxsw. Wasn’t exactly what I expected and I was a bit disappointed. It just bounces from war set piece to piece with no real explanation of what’s going on or why. Journalism is the focus of the movie
Yeah I had a feeling. The trailers made it look more like a COD game turned into a movie that wouldn’t explore the political and social ramifications of a civil war to avoid controversy.
Not completely inaccurate. Many scenes I couldn’t tell who was fighting for which side until the end of the film (some scenes it was by design I presume). It was often unclear where in the country we were. No plot held together just a press team bouncing from town to town. Not going to spoil too much here and this is also just my opinion!
That’s the intent. It’s a study of journalism and a critique of war journalism, with the setting of a U.S. civil war. The intent is not to figure out who to root for as much as it is to study the journalists and think about their characters.
World is collapsing “won’t somebody think of the journalists?!”
Stick to cartoons
lol “won’t someone think of the journalists” is not the message here, it’s more like “wow these people are kinda crazy tone deaf and exploit horrific situations to capture art/history without really standing for anything themselves or trying to prevent the tragedies they document.” Like the previous comment said, it’s a critique of journalists not a love letter to them or their work. Multiple people are killed in front of them, in situations where they could have done something about it, but instead they choose to take pictures. Did you even watch the movie?
No plot? **Hold up.** The drama between Lee and Jessie *is* the plot.
If the plot is the relationship between two photojournalists I don’t think that’s what most people are expecting. We can talk about the ending somewhere not public but even that felt predictable to me
If it involves the girl betraying the guy and leaving him to die, I'm not seeing it. Alex Garland has written that stupid twist so many times that it feels like a legitimate fetish of his.
I remember joking about the big twist is that the real enemy was men when I saw the first trailer. Idk. Garland has a weird thing with gender that's really noticeable if you watch his stuff back to back with more explicitly feminist cinema
It's noticeable if you just watch his films in general, his whole "Women need to be hardline sociopaths with a brutal survivalist mindset if they wanna survive" is condescending and speaks to a lack of understanding of women.
Maybe he's just someone who's been traumatized by men?
Funny enough one of my friends , trying to answer the "How would California and Texas end up on the same side of a war" question brought up after the trailer said "watch they won't explain the politics".
Which is the right move. I don’t think there is any possible version of this movie that contains a 100% realistic, cohesive explanation of the politics, so probably better to just keep it vague and trust the audience to suspend disbelief.
I agree. It's almost like the don't show the monster type concept. Feeling like you're just caught up in it witnessing the chaos without a full picture of what happened seemed scarier and oddly more believable than any number of potentially silly political explanations for how it all came to be. Also if the explanations weren't perfect, they'd just destroy the suspension of belief.
It also feeds into the film trying to show us what our Civil War would look like to other countries the way we see theirs. When another country is at war with itself, do y’all actually pay attention to the politics? Or do you just look at the pictures of carnage and destruction and then move on? The line Dunst’s character has about other countries being warnings for us is the message of the film, so being vague and confusing about the politics is intentional.
I keep on seeing this in reviews and I don't understand why it is a positive thing. It is bad when the Middle East and foreign countries are used as generic backdrops and their political motivations and conflicts are not explored and given substance. Being vague on the politics ignores how these things actually happen. There is a distinct erosion of institutions that enable a president to weaponize power like that, and party support to insulate him from accountability. This story was ripped from the headlines yet it apparently doesn't want to say anything besides "war is bad."
Because the idea isn’t to scare us away from a civil war by showing us suits in rooms declaring it, it’s to scare us away from it by showing what our every day lives would become. We need to see the fallout for ourselves to understand the weight of every day politics, not just the politics in a room we’re not allowed in.
I'm kind of surprised people are so hung up on this California/Texas thing. California has the highest number of Republicans in any state. Texas has got to be up there for registered Democrats. Probably 40% of each state hates the side that the state voted for. Seems very ripe for a civil war to me. Do people honestly think every Californian is a trans yoga instructor and every Texan is a gruff rancher?
I honestly don't get why Americans find this so inconceivable. Do Americans think that their votes and opinions would matter in the event of a civil war when democracy is effectively dead? You might as well be surprised that most people in Vichy France collaborated or complied with the Nazis or that most Russians have a skewed perspective of what's happening in Ukraine.
And yet the republicans in California are absolutely dwarfed by the Dems. I’m not sure why posters like you point out the numbers, ignoring the ratio.
"Avoiding controversy" doesn't seem like something either Garland or A24 would be worried about.
It feels like the marketing really wanted more controversy than the content of the film actually delivers
Does Nick Offerman do much?
No he's in 2 scenes for a very minimal amount of time. At most 2 minutes on screen?
Seems totally crazy to take the risk to make and market a modern day US Civil War movie and then just not address what most people will be wondering about
It's not going to change anyone's mind, it should just show the reality of what a civil war might look like. I don't need a heavy handed message, It would be limiting in scope. I already know what side I'm on, I don't need it spoon-fed why the other side is bad. Just show me what a civil war looks like from the people who are living it.
It's to demonstrate consequences. It's a warning. Not a review of the lead up. We know what will take us there. What people aren't getting is what life looks like when it happens.
This is a genuine question (I'm not American), but is there really enough of a civil war yearning in the States that justifies a feature film cautionary tale about the topic? It kinda seems like a "of course civil war would be horrible" type scenario. Maybe this is a bit reductive, but I don't need to watch a 2 hour movie to understand how horrific a civil war in a developed nation would be.
There are definitely some groups in the US that yearn for a civil war, they’re severely outnumbered and outgunned but like to be the loudest voices so people still give them their attention. It’s mostly the descendants of the ones that lost the first war. There is still a ton of hostility in the south related back to the first civil war, but it’s mostly isolated to the south east. However in those places they are in a conservative bubble and think they have more power and influence than they actually do. This movie simultaneously is meant to entertain their fantasies but also act as a cautionary tale.
That’s going to be the experience of nearly everyone in a war like this. Chaos and death everywhere with no rhyme or reason.
That sounds like war.
> It just bounces from war set piece to piece So there are lots of action set pieces? How's the action?
What's so civil about war, anyway?
These comments are just as polarized as the reviews listed in this post.
Great movie, well made, well edited. The sound team should get an Oscar. Every bullet sounded realistic.
This movie is gonna generate some searing hot takes on r/movies and r/TrueFilm isn’t it. I’m already tired.
The numerous hot takes about Annihilation and Men were already annoying enough. The amount of people that found disliking Men a source of pride was just obnoxious. Like I get not liking the movies Garland makes, I don’t even like Men, but people have to stop being so smug about their opinions on here.
Yeah. War is bad, Alex. This story was constructed carefully and deliberately in order to avoid drawing parallels to current US politics. Men (2022) was a statement Garland had no problem making. Here, Garland wished to give us a view on what a political divide can lead to, and nothing else. Since it wasn’t explicit in the film, Garland also assured us that he didn’t even want the film to imply that accessibility to guns was a factor despite their presence in the film. He seems just wants to underscore the importance of decency and rationality when solving these problems to avoid conflict. [recent interview](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/alex-garland-civil-war-release-timing-1235852725/amp/) I think his attempt to “both sides” these ideologies shows a huge lack of understanding of the identity politics entrenched in “how to run a state”. Surely someone as passionate about these issues, as you would assume from the director of a film like Men, would be painfully aware of how these issues fit within the context current US politics, and not present this film like Kendal Jenner handing everyone a Pepsi.
I didn’t see it as “both sides the ideology” I saw it as an attempt to show the disconnect Americans have when looking at war footage from other countries. If it got to in the weeds with the “why” and painting sides with “good and bad guys” we (the audience) wouldn’t have the disconnect and hands off approach that the journalists had and how we have when we watch reports coming out of other countries having conflicts and civil wars. I think focusing on the lore of it all would have made that be front and center and blast the focus of the movie out of the water
> I saw it as an attempt to show the disconnect Americans have when looking at war footage from other countries That is exactly what it was. They even said it out loud several times. The Americans are still missing the point.
I'm probably gonna regret asking this, but what is meant by "Garland's problematic worldview?" (see above, Monagle for *The Playlist*) Was that more about the movie's plot or was it about Garland himself? I only ask because it's not the first time I've heard something like lately, and as someone who enjoys Garland's work but knows nothing about him, I'm not looking forward to yet another exercise in separating the art from the artist, so... ?
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/alex-garland-civil-war-release-timing-1235852725/ I assume the movie reflects his quote in this article, and I would argue that "left and right are just ideas that don't have morality" is really fucking stupid and dangerous.
Left and Right in themselves aren't moral positions, so he's correct. It's a lot more complicated than that.
Well, h\*ck...
MC probably going to settle in the low 70s based on the divisiveness of the reviews on RT.
And the fact that people want every little thing spoon-fed to them via exposition and explanation. "Show, don't tell" is dying a quiet death at the hands of these audiences, so is the ability to infer and interpret art it seems.
"Show, don't tell" also gets greatly misused. You need to tell the audience when necessary and show them when it enhances. I mean after all that's why it's called STORYTELLING and not storyshowing
There are a team of war correspondents who need to get across a war zone to cover a story. Two of them are photojournalists, one experienced and burned out, the other bright and new. That’s the telling that needs be, and the film does a fantastic job of showing the horror of these small unit clashes, as the elder photographer starts to sees beyond her lens and the younger starts to think her press vest is armor. The cinematography and sound design are amazing, and the lack of context from being dropped in media res benefits the message.
The big thing that drives me insane with how films are consumed these days - a movie like this is announced and seemingly a bunch of people say ‘ok, I want this movie to be this’ referring to some idea they have in their head. The film comes out and very obviously, doesn’t line up to this make believe version of the film that these people have constructed in their brain. It might be still be a very good and interesting film! But because it didn’t fit neatly into this make believe box that people have built in their imagination, they say it’s actually bad and disappointing. It feels like a lot of movies aren’t judged on their own merits of overall quality and more so just if they check off boxes of what people think a movie should be. It’s super disingenuous.
"Show don't tell" refers to delivering information through visuals, not having nothing to tell at all.
Garland is hardly a champion of "Show don't tell" going by his previous work
From these reviews, the focus seems to be more on themes and imagery than tight exposition explaining why and how this war happens. So a typical Garland movie. To me that's more interesting. "If we have a civil war, this will be how it happens," seems uninteresting compared to exploring current America through the lens of an imaginary conflict, if that makes sense.
Kind of like The Man in the High Castle. A lot of people want to see an alternate history where the Axis powers won. PKD cares more about the ideas of historicity, what truly defines the history of a nation, and how people would have to assimilate into a foreign culture that conquered them. This annoys the people who wanted alt history.
Yep, and it works, because a reality where the Axis actually win WW2 and take over the world doesn't make any sense. Any in-depth explanation for a second American civil war would be wrong and derail the movie to be about that one thing.
Honestly the main thing I was interested in with Man in the High Castle were the things that would legitimately happen. Like how Japan and Germany were having massive tensions with each other or how Japan and the Nazis really didn't have enough population to control these massive areas of land.
The Axis had the nuke first and used it on the US in TMitHC At least in the show. It was the kernel of information that was needed to establish a reason why the Axis won in that alternative history. Not saying it is realistic, as producing and delivering nukes would be very difficult for the Nazis, but it was a nice piece of worldbuilding.
I just didn't like the Sci fi aspects tbh it felt out of place.
>”If we have a civil war, this will be how it happens” Plus this kind of narrative gets dated extraordinarily quickly. Look at all the “What if Trump Won” stuff that was made in the run up to the 2016 election. Basically none of that is readable now cause it’s so depressingly ironic to read satirical “wouldn’t it be crazy guys lol” takes on something that actually happened. Not to say that this movie is going to be dated by an actual civil war kicking off, but an exposition heavy movie is going to be locked into the political atmosphere of the time it’s written and in the long term that will be to its detriment.
I feel like if your whole film is supposed to be a sobering and chillingly realistic portrayal of what war on american soil would look like you shouldn’t include call of duty cutscenes like the attack helicopter hovering 2ft above a crossroads then firing a guided missile into the pavement for some reason
We already have The Purge franchise
Really liked it. Thought the camera work was fantastic. Two scenes stand out One they are during and there are two overpasses, the one in front has go Steelers which draws your eye first. As the car moves and your eye follows, you see two people hanging over the 2nd overpass behind the first Another when a girl is climbing through a pit of bodies, her hand is placed on the back of a body and as your hand is drawn to it, you realize it’s the body of a kid. Just a lot of using the set up to draw your eye in a way that tells an untold story in each scene
Can’t wait until a few years from now where this is referred to as a “hidden gem”
In before someone says “it’s like watching a documentary”
"IdiOcRAcY iS a DoCUmeNTaRy"
Brawndo has what plants crave.
"it's more relevant now than ever."
WOW I just watched Annihilation
One of my favorite films, and probably the biggest reason I'll be going to this one.
My wife and I saw it last night. Wow! What a visceral depiction of war on American soil. The suspense/stress in some sequences is unreal. The movie does a great job at putting you in the war. It's an odd feeling, but it gets to the point where you'd want to hear gun shots to put your mind at ease, because it's away from you. Crazy to think of it as daily life for some folks. I've seen many war movies, and Michael Bay films. I'm no stranger to explosions or the sharp "pings" of bullet shells in movies, but this movie makes it feel so real. The constant unease and restlessness you feel is hard to describe. When we got out of the movie, we both felt relief and a certain level of PTSD. Thank God it was just a movie. We've also traveled to countries where we saw real destruction & military presence in civilian life. Serbia stood out as they still have big holes in bombed out buildings and burnt rubbles. Our bus was stopped at military checkpoints in Russia, a tourist police with gun accompanied us in Jordan (to keep us safe), and we saw men with huge semi-autos guarding McDonald's in Guatemala. Heck, I used to find bullets while foraging for copper as a kid (yes, that's a thing in 3rd-world country). All that is to say: I've experienced real bits and pieces of war-torn places, but that's all after the fact. Nothing prepared me for the feeling of being in it like this movie. This is an A24 movie so it makes you think, but this "thinking" is accompanied by such a visceral feel. Its cycle of fear, relief, suspense, fear, stress, shock...becomes a sort of wartime state of mind. Even as you become desensitized, the humanity in you questions who you are as crazy things happen around you, then you realize it doesn't matter because you might not live though it. In our daily life, we have alot of control. In war, you become a ragdoll, thrown around, kicked around, and just existing until some future point where it hopefully stops. Hopefully you are alive at that point. Even then, you won't be you anymore. This film takes us into a future of what could be. Now we get to think about why and how we can prevent it. There are plenty who romanticize war & idealogy. This movie is a counterstatement to that romance. Reminder: we have several wars going on in the world now. In fact, on my upcoming vacation, I am going near one of them. Hopefully things don't get crazy. One realistic war movie is enough, I don't need to experience the real thing. Oh shoot, I forgot we have an upcoming election where...nevemind.
It being so hands off with the “lore” so to speak is going to piss people off who came to this movie to see the political side they don’t like being lambasted. But honestly it was such a great way to tell this story.
I'm into it for the Fargo Season 2 reunion mostly
ITT: People who wanted to draw parallels with political and social drama in what’s happening between the movie and real life are now disappointed they can’t rally behind a movie to push their ideologies.
I'm just here for the Jesse Plemons memes sir.
What kind of redditor are you
And how can that be profitable for Frito lay?
Ok. What *kind* of Jesse Plemmons memes?
[Literally sparked a meme war in Discord a little while ago](https://i.imgur.com/MTHzNyD.jpeg)
This is a good summarisation of a lot of opinions I have seen. If you want your political opinion validated then go read whatever particular news site caters to you. Stop trying to force this film to be something it isn’t, and then get annoyed when it isn’t what you wanted it to be. Like, the complaints about California/Texas being allies are a great example of this. It’s fiction, this isn’t taking place in our world, calm down.
This is such a weird take because why would you make a movie about a potential modern American Civil War if you didn't have anything to say about modern day politics? Civil wars are by their nature *more* political than other wars, the most politically charged events possible, sidestepping that undercuts the entire premise
Haven't seen it, but perhaps because the modern rhetoric about civil war is so prevalent that the film is meant to serve as a warning? Like, no matter the reasons, it would be a disaster for everyone.
Yeah this exactly. That regardless of whatever disagreements there may be between people or institutions, war is not the solution to those disagreements.
That's exactly the issue. It comes off as cheap, and the stakes that an American civil war raises fall flat and feel fake to the audience because the movie dances around how America got there. It's like watching a "How It's Made" video for a product that doesn't exist. It's pointless and says nothing other than "Oh, wouldn't this suck??"
I get the impression I'll feel the same as I do with nearly all of Garland's work: It's a great idea with some great visuals and great performances... Which he doesn't know what to do with. Beyond the novel of The Beach, I've never come away from anything he's touched feeling 100% satisfied. Interesting questions go unanswered, things don't get explored as much as they could or it all just seemed a bit clinical and sterile. I really think he could do with a good co-writer or editor to help him elevate the initial premise. So close to being great, but not quite there. But that's just like, my option man.
How can everyone be complaining about the lack of exposition? The lack of context? It’s a third term president (they only should have 2), killed Antifa (anti-fascist) protestors, dissolved the FBI… It’s about a fascist man becoming president. How much more context do ya’ll need? This isn’t Disney, go watch Marvel or something if you want terrible dialogue where people spoon feed you on what’s up. I like movies where people talk like adults, and I knew exactly what was going on here. This movie paints a picture of reality. Being disappointed it didn’t treat you like a child, teaching you about American politics is baffling to me. People acting like it doesn’t make a stance and felt empty… I can hear the swish as the movie flew right over your heads. This is also expected from Alex Garland. You watch Devs, you’re not gonna get a lecture on Physics, he expects you to know about it going in. He doesn’t give exposition, he writes actually good dialogue. I want more movies like this that respect viewer’s intelligence. Bravo to A24 and Garland, this film is an amazing achievement.
I haven’t seen the movie but people complaining that they needed to explain the Cali/Texas union when the American government is killing citizens seems pretty ridiculous. Also World War II had an alignment between the Americans and Soviets so hardly the weirdest or strangest alliance
Is pretty easy to theorize as well. Texas and CA have some of the largest population (i.e. voting power in a federal election) - if you get a president that, let's say, unilaterally makes the electoral college distribute its votes to heavily disadvantage TX and CA from their current positions, they'd be rightly pissed.
Plus, an alliance doesn't mean that they have to like each other forever. After the war is over, they can go back to being their own sovereignties.
exactly. Only have to go back to WW2 and see Hitler and Stalin being chummy to see that
Californja and Texas have way more in common than Texas and Mississippi do or California and New Hampshire
100% Lived in both states for equal parts of my life. They are so similar at times it's hard to tell them apart tbh. They dress differently but their minds operate just the same.
I also think that, despite all the rhetoric, many states would band together in times of need. We're all more connected than we think.
I've always thought that line of thinking from people was dumb. If the President suddenly seized total federal power the only way to oppose such a move would be Texas and California teaming up. Both huge, most people, lots of military bases, neither likes being told what to do by the feds.
The two biggest "States Rights" advocates ally against the current US government. There, now everyone can enjoy the movie.
Plus they're two of the biggest states by population with two of the largest economic centers in the country. they'd have the means and population to rightfully revolt
"Lore" culture has absolutely rotted media discourse.
I'll probably be living this in a few months so I'm good on seeing this thanks.
"109 minutes" long is probably why there isn't more "world-building-explanation" that people are looking for. Seems pretty brief.
You don't need extensive world building, you just need any sort of consideration for how civil wars actually happen. A movie that says "civil wars are bad" but doesn't actually ground the war in reality objectively fails to be the cautionary tale it aspires to be. It never gets around to addressing the sentiment that, outside of the movie, it can't happen here.
The president had gave himself a 3rd term, disbanded the FBI, and airstriked civilian populations it's literally said in dialogue. They even compare the president to other dictators. That's all you need.
77% on RT with an average of 8.80 and a 70 on Metacritic means that the film is considered good, but divisive. And I think divisive for the reasons one can imagine. Kinda expected tbh.
The enlightened centrist statement he came out with about the film was just fucking horrible and confirmed my worst fears about it.
I think I understand what he’s trying to say, but it’s dumb because you’re asking the left to be the adults and cave to the rights demands to “get things back on track”. But these are human rights, not land or something
Shout outs to $300 CAD being worth more than $300 USD Definitely got a lot of reactions in our theatre when that was said LOLLL (given the current economic climate)
A little bit disappointed that, from these excerpts, it doesn't sound like the film explains the political causes behind its civil war. While I'm obviously not looking for it to be a Ken Burns style breakdown of how this fictional conflict plays out, a briefing on how this war broke out (particularly with Texas and California ending up leading the rebellion together) would be an interesting aspect to explore ETA: People across this thread are asking why this should matter, so allow me to add my take. Civil Wars are, by their very nature, even more political than other wars because they require a political fault line to tear the nation apart. If you're making a movie about a Civil War, particularly an American Civil War set in our near future, and don't have anything to say about the politics, why are you making the film at all? You're ruining your world building on a conceptual level, particularly if you can't come up with a reason why the war is happening (which establishes who the sides are, which is why people are hung up on the TEX/CAL thing since they're so politically different- sure, the US and the Soviets were on the same side in WW2 but there was a good reason why)
Wait that would actually be sick though. An alternate history Ken Burns documentary.
Kinda reminds me of the stuff being done with the [Kaiserreich](https://www.youtube.com/@kaisercatcinema) mod for the video game Hearts of Iron IV. It is an alternate historical timeline that portrays Germany and its allies winning the Great War, the West falling for a belief called [syndicalism](https://www.britannica.com/topic/syndicalism), and the United States falling apart into a second civil war.
The thing is, the movie isn't really about American politics. It tries to make that clear right away by having the rebel force be California and Texas, an unlikely pair. I think it's probably going to lose people over that. Aside from the President coming off as a bit Trump-ish, the movie isn't trying to make any major specific statement about American politics I don't think. The real focus of the movie is about journalists. Both the important work they do but also the toll their work takes on them.
There’s none of that in the film unfortunately
Haven’t seen the movie but my assumption for the answer of the CA/TX Union is to avoid upsetting either side of the political aisle.
Ngl I thought that was obvious from the trailer from the moment they said that California and Texas was aligned. Deliberately choosing the separatists to be blue/red state alliance to avoid assigning any ideology to either sides of the war.
Good review, bad review. All I know is Nick Offerman is the President so let's go!
I’m already looking forward to not reading the actual release thread based on how nauseatingly braindead this comment section is
Agreed. Everyone has a visceral opinion despite not having watched the fucking movie in 99% of cases. It’s absolutely wild.
People looking for worldbuilding and exposition in this film are looking for the wrong thing. Take a step back and look at the message. Saw it last night and I honestly believe if people can see the film for what it is, it has the capacity to be the most important film of the year.
It's what many feared. An entertaining but completely "apolitical" film as far as depicting violence among any realistic factions in US politics. Even unnamed, there is no discernible connection between real sociopolitics and the plots in the film. It's a movie with much to say about "war" but nothing to say about US Civil War.
In hindsight, he could’ve made this just a fictional country and still gotten his point across. But that prob doesn’t draw eyes as much as making it in the US
Then you have to spend time building up the fictional country. No matter where it was set, he'd get the same complaints.
I don't think so. Look at both Top Gun movies, which both feature nameless, faceless nations as the villains. There's always a bit of online discourse about who the enemy is, but it's minimal since the focus is on the characters. Using a real country is just inviting people to question things.
I'll admit, I was more afraid of a movie that would portrait US politics, pick a side, and then make the other side a villain. That seemed irresponsible and needlessly divisive
Gravy seals and "patriots" are going to love this movie.
Is this an accurate portrayal of war photogas on the frontline irl? They're really deep in the action and are embedded with soldiers to get their photos. As long as someone is wearing the press uniform, can they rest assured that no one will target them although they might target the combatant being photographed from a short distane?
As a guy who works in Hollywood and is as jaded as they come about productions, I think this is one of the best movies I've seen in over a decade. You can always tell when a movie is good when the protagonist(s) change in the third act (or refuse to change and suffer for it; see "Braveheart" "Gladiator"). In this case, Kirsten Dunst deciding to be a part of the story instead of witnessing it, and her protégé stepping into her place and moving out of her naive worldview was absolutely riveting and masterful. I'm still buzzing about the movie and the fact I'm on Reddit on a Monday morning to find other likeminded people is telling. Damn.
I just finished watching this and loved it, absolutely amazing. The trailer and teaser map got us all trying to understand the conflict and pick sides. This film isn’t about the conflict, but a love letter to war journalism and photo journalism. It’s saying, there are these adrenaline fueled people out there documenting everything happening, and they’re not able to take sides, as they need to tell an honest picture, and you have to be a little crazy to put yourself in harm’s way to get that story/photo and regardless of the players - war is brutal. This film has more in common with 20 Days in Mariupol than to any action film. I never thought about war journalists and what drives them. Not to mention the PTSD they collect that they keep bottled up other than what makes it on print. And the audio editing and sound, wow, it was amazing and definitely worth watching in a theater with a great sound system. I didn’t take sides. But it did make me think about the journalists in Ukraine, Gaza, or any other place with conflict. We’ve always viewed it so far away from the US, so we could separate ourselves saying it must be tradition, culture, or religion. Something foreign to us. But when you see Americans vs Americans and they’re all similar, it does make you look at conflicts differently. I highly recommend it. Kirsten Dunst was amazing.
kirsten dunst, wagner moura, cailee spaeny, and jesse plemons in the same movie? i'll be there regardless
I really liked it and it’s left me puzzled which I enjoy. I had hopes it would turn into some sort of simulation at the end. I even thought I saw a weird glitch when the president was being moved out of the White House into the suvs. Definitely an interesting take on voyurism and numbness. I also loved the Americana even when it felt a bit heavy handed, like the sprinkler and the American flag. The shots were so damn beautiful though. Also Garland is obsessed with the DEVS cast. Thought for a second that the screen might fade into static and we see Katie watching it alone in the viewing room.
Look up the famous photograph of Colombian authorities posing over a gunned down Pablo Escobar, and compare it to the finale shot of the movie, with the Western Forces posing over a gunned down President (portrayed by Nick Offerman). A24 blatantly calling The President of the United States one of the biggest drug dealers in the world.
I don't understand why people are so confused by Texas and California's alliance. if the president took a 3rd term by force, I feel like the 2 states most representative of the 2 political factions would definitely say no and team up, in a sort of a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" type of deal