“Civil War” Is About Something Bigger Than Civil War

Hot damn this is a good movie. Better than I expected, in fact, but not for the reasons you might expect.

To start, this isn’t really a movie about the second American civil war. Alex Garland is one of my top five filmmakers, so I was going to see it in the theater no matter what, but I was a bit skeptical going in. The previews and posters made it seem like some Jerry Bruckheimer-esque action film about USians killing each other, and I’ve come to know and love Garland for his solid sci fi work (28 Days Later, Sunshine, Ex Machina, Annihilation, and the highly underrated Devs). I thought maybe he was making some weird genre leap, so I braced myself to be disappointed.

However, I wasn’t. This is classic Garland. The incredible use of sound, silence, and music. The impeccable shots and gorgeous camera work even when they depict brutality. The excellent casting and outstanding acting (including from Garland favorites Stephen McKinley Henderson, Nick Offerman, and the near-unrecognizable Sonoya Mizuno).

But also the Big Questions and subtleties are classic Garland. I think these were missed by a lot of film goers and reviewers, which might be why some folks are disappointed in the film. Like the dude behind me exiting the theater, who expressed frustration to his friend: “But we never knew WHO was fighting or WHY!” Like the local reviewers I normally agree with who got stuck on the fact British Garland said this movie is “apolitical”. I could practically hear their eyes roll as they stopped short of calling him naïve for labelling a movie depicting soldiers warring and average Americans brutalizing each other “apolitical”.

But now I understand why Garland said that. Just like all his other films, whether it’s a zombie apocalypse, last-ditch space mission, sentient robot, alien invasion, or tech company playing God, in all Garland’s other major works (except for Men) the Big Thing Happening is just background to deeply human stories about people navigating new realities and relationships with each other.

It’s the same in Civil War. We don’t need to know who’s fighting (although we do) or why, because this isn’t a story about politics. It’s a story about four people in the midst of politics who happen to be journalists. It is apolitical because Garland goes to great lengths to avoid even hinting who’s in the White House — from Offerman’s nuanced performance and tie colors to the race and gender of the person negotiating for his safe passage, to the fact that California has teamed up with Texas (!!) to oust him, to all the characters’ dialogue, to the graffiti on war torn walls.

Civil War is a story about people navigating collapse — personal and societal. It’s a story about purpose and meaning. It’s a story about the “civil war” inside us and between individuals.

It’s also a story about race, which seems to be lost on most viewers and reviewers.

Civil War is a story about people navigating collapse — personal and societal. It’s a story about members of different generations constructing narratives about their lives and the events around them. It’s a story about the consequences of two different kinds of shooting — guns and cameras. It’s a story about purpose and meaning. It’s a story about two women struggling with each other at profound turning points in their lives, and the men striving to protect and respect them. It’s a story about the “civil war” inside us and between individuals — not just military factions fighting for a nation.

It’s also a story about race, which seems to be lost on most viewers and reviewers. The first U.S. Civil War was fought about slavery, so race was integral to that conflict. If you pay close attention to characters’ demographics in multiple scenes in Civil War, race and gender are integral here too, although more quietly. There’s the White House character I mentioned. There’s the soldier who administers the coup de grace in the final scene. There’s the Western Forces soldier trapped by gunfire in one of the first combat scenes. There’s the regular-folk refugees living life in the stadium.

And then there’s the much-talked-about scene with Jesse Plemons’s unnamed militant character. Indeed, that scene is one of the highlights of the film due to its raw candor and performances (knowing Plemons is Kirsten Dunst’s real-life spouse made me respect both even more). [SPOILER ALERT] But the fact that the Black character (Stephen McKinley Henderson’s Sammy) is the only one who recognizes the real danger Plemons and his buddies pose (!), then saves the other characters and dies in the process (!!) is just so many racial tropes in film and real life.

As the most oppressed members of the American racial caste system, Black people like Sammy simply can’t afford to be ignorant about racist predators like Plemons. But then, like Sammy, they’re often depicted as noble martyrs who save the naïve privileged folks at great personal cost. The fact that the two white women and the Latin American — with an accent no less — ignore his warnings and are almost murdered for their naïvete is significant.

Its significance is also timely. Despite the dramatic rise of right-wing violence in the USA, including the January 6th insurrection, most white people continue to be willfully ignorant about this very real threat. I heard an interview on my local NPR station between a white interviewer I like with actors Cailee Spaeny and Wagner Moura. I was dismayed to hear that none of them brought forth the subtleties I’ve mentioned. Instead, they leaned hard into The Civil War motif, and the interviewer expressed great shock over the Jesse Plemons scene, even calling the character “unhinged” when in truth he was the calmest, most reasonable person in it. Even Moura, a Brazilian immigrant who I assume has certainly experienced discrimination, played into this willful ignorance by uttering tired platitudes like “we have common ground”, and should “stop the hate.”

Only a Black person playing a Black character saw the truth, which applies to reality as well as “Civil War”. Being an American, or a journalist, or an unarmed, well-intended person doesn’t save you when you encounter a predator.

Only a Black person playing a Black character saw the truth, which applies to reality as well as Civil War. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an American, or a journalist, or an unarmed, well-intended person. When you encounter someone who’s decided you’re not human, not worthy, or don’t belong, they will murder you in cold blood if they can, and probably get away with it.

Black people in the U.S. have known this for centuries. The sooner we all wake up to that reality of both historical and current America, more of us might survive The Civil War that’s already building in this country.

In that sense, Civil War is a political film after all, and you should see it. But not because it’s a bombastic action flick about Americans murdering each other (it’s not), but because it’s about something more understated, and even more terrifying.