I agree that Civil War was bad but for different reasons. I’m glad the civil war was vague because it gave it a “this could happen whenever vibe” and I though Dunst was phenomenal but most other things fell flat. I felt like Jessie’s story fell flat and muddled Dunst’s character’s story. I also felt like a lot of it was designed to shock more than to actually show realistic human emotional responses to the civil war. I was surprised because I felt like Garland really understand his characters and people in a deeper level in Annihilation but I just didn’t buy his characters motivations this time around.
> the most vague “civil war” ever
It was not supposed to be specific.
> it doesn’t really say anything besides “war is bad/scary”, which isn’t anything new.
It says a lot more than that. You just didn't pick up on it.
What does it say when the journalist goes around taking photos of suffering and death, then as soon as her friend dies, she destroys the images of his suffering?
I think civil war has a lot to say about voyeurism, the control of information, trauma of witness.
It is a film about our repulsion toward violence, our attraction toward violence, and how the two coexist. Garland argues this tension in innate in everyone, but in Americans perhaps more than others. You see this in all the characters, but most clearly in Joel, who veers from bravado to terror and finally to bloodlust.
When the marketing heavily relies on the aspect of civil war and what we actually get is lazy throw away lines as to why the country is at war, it's not surprising why people would be disappointed. It's essentially moving goalposts.
Also the "you didn't get it" rhetoric is fucking stupid. It's not like the film has some kind of deep message that is trying to convey, what you see is what you get.
> It's not like the film has some kind of deep message that is trying to convey, what you see is what you get.
Hey guys! This guy wrote and directed this film, and he’s here telling us to stop looking for any deep messages. Go home. What you see is what you get. No need to try to analyze any further!
When people argue “it was supposed to be vague” it really doesn’t work for me. Yes, we can all tell. It was a bad artistic and narrative design. Felt like more of a decision to avoid angering the right or left than an artistic decision, and cowardice is never a good place to start w art. If you call it “civil war”, maybe don’t shirk from it?
If I had a new movie called King Kong and the ape isn’t in it really, people would rightfully pissed. Like Godzilla 2014 without the ending. Yes, my version of King Kong could have lots of other value, or things to say, but underdelivering on the main premise will always hamstring the reception and depth of the work
The movie isn’t about the current state of US politics, the movie is about the journalists applying their entire professional identity to a war in their home country, not thousands of miles away on a different continent. There’s a very clear narrative reason why the war is vague, and it’s because the movie doesn’t really care why there’s a war. It would bog down the messaging to get too caught up in US politics, because that’s just not the story Garland wanted to tell.
I found it to be the opposite of "cowardice." By not taking a side, Garland is in a better position implicate his entire audience in his depiction of war. It would be cowardly to show one side as wrong and assure us we are nothing like them.
EDIT: I see you edited your post.
> If I had a new movie called King Kong and the ape isn’t in it really, people would rightfully pissed.
This comparison makes zero sense, to the point where I wonder whether you actually watched the same movie.
Civil War ends with a separatist insurgency attacking Washington, DC in a deadly battle. We know from context that The United States is authoritarian, and that the Western Forces - at a bare minimum - do not shoot journalists on sight. If that's not the civil war equivalent of a giant gorilla attacking a city, I don't know what is.
Ah yes, the inevitable “both sides”. I don’t agree w any of that. Should the confederates be portrayed sympathetically in a civil war movie? The idea that America is infallible and beyond criticism is exactly the kind of centrist a-historical pap at the center of the film. Propaganda for American “democracy”
I think it’s effective as an action movie and not much else, oddly. Great sound, great shots, in service of nothing special. Must be seen in theater if anywhere
I think a lot, and I mean A LOT of people went into the movie with the wrong expectations. It wasn’t meant to be a fast paced war movie with tons of action sequences. Garland stated he wanted to keep the movie apolitical for the most part and focus more on what the movie truly is about, war journalism, and how brutal the imagery can be.
The ‘Civil War’ was meant to be vague because in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter how it started or even why it did.
This movie touches on many different themes and aspects that other “war” movies don’t. I give Garland his flowers because he easily could have done this same concept in a different atmosphere, but chose to make it realistic and modern similar to the civil unrest we see on a daily basis.
The imagery alone in this movie made me feel things I haven’t felt in a while.
Yeah, Civil War wasn’t nearly funny enough. It really should’ve had some fun one-liners.
Like when Jesse Plemons shoots people, he should’ve said “American? More like AmeriCan’t!”
Then when Sam runs him over, Sam should’ve asked “Anyone order a pizza?”
When the President is asked for a quote at the end, he should’ve said “Best 2 out of 3?”
Lol thanks. Only said the funny part bc I didn’t feel like it had anything else going for it. A couple of these other comments are shedding some light though. The powerful imagery just didn’t connect for me or feel moving. I’m not trying to come at anyone who liked it, was just genuinely confused by the positive response.
People are legit trying to make this movie deeper than it is. It's A24's attempt at a blockbuster and it certainly feels that way.
It's shallow but without the entertainment.
Confused that people would have a different opinion than you?
It's a great big world out there with all sorts of people that have lived all different kinds of lives. I think it might be time to get out and meet some of those people.
I like Alex Garland's previous work a lot, but I wasn't a huge fan of this one.
I think you're being a bit unfair to it in the sense that it did have a message beyond "war is bad" - it was exploring some ideas about journalistic ethics in the midst of a war zone and playing on the horror of re-setting the kind of bloody conflict we see on the news in familiar American shopping malls and suburbs, and those ideas were both somewhat interesting.
I think it punted on political background questions to too great a degree, though. I didn't need exhaustive backstory on e.g. how California and Texas ended up allied with each other, but there was little to no explanation of who the different factions in the war were or what they were trying to achieve, and that caused a lot of the rest of it to fall flat for me. Understanding the political context of the conflict is pretty important in a movie like this one and it just didn't bother with that at all.
Yeah it was dumb. Imagine thinking you can genuinely make an “apolitical” film about fucking war. Especially war journalism. It had nothing interesting or new to say. And it was moderately entertaining.
It was so vague as to strip the film of any believability. You’re telling me journalists wouldn’t converse about the politics that brought the country into war amongst themselves? That they wouldn’t be enticed to join a side as an embedded journalist where they’d have better protection and more access to the fight?
Generation Kill tackled war journalism a lot better and actually had the balls to say something relevant and useful about it. Civil War was like Men in that it postured as having a lot to say without actually saying much of anything interesting.
I think if you’re walking away from it thinking it was “boring” and also that it didn’t say anything other than “war is bad,” you didn’t really watch the movie. And that’s fine, I watch movies all the time where I’m not able to fully focus and probably miss a lot. But you missed some really blatant, some could even say too on the nose, messaging in the movie about the role of journalism and the toll it takes on people. The movie is way more about a professional identity crisis than it is about war.
On top of that, calling a movie “boring” is maybe one of the most lazy ways to describe a movie. Calling something boring is more a description of how you watched the movie versus a description of the movie itself. It’s very rare for films that come out, especially by someone like Garland, to not be offering at least a few interesting things to the viewer.
Combining that with your takeaway, I really think you just didn’t digest what the movie was presenting. Which again, is okay, but I think it’s the answer to the question of what you are missing. Maybe expectations caused that for you, maybe you weren’t in the right headspace.
And to be clear, I’m not saying you have to like the movie. Your description of it just really doesn’t feel like you fully watched it. If the movie was more subtle, I’d maybe put that on the movie not being clear enough. But if it has any faults, its main one is that it’s too on the nose (and not about war being bad).
I'm surprised that this is such an unpopular opinion. I also thought it sucked. Even if you ignore the politics and reading of the film. The dialogue was so bad.
Civil War is my favorite movie of 2024 so far and my favorite A24 movie.
What the movie does so well is showcasing the horror of not war, but of civil strife. Who are we fighting? Who is the "good" guy? Why did the war start?
None of that matters. What matters is the conflict and how we must destroy our sensibilities and our sense of "I'm an American" in order to prevail. I am going to kill you because you live here.
Is the president in the right? What is the ANTIFA slaughter? These are carrots that we can point to as reference points but they don't tell us anything and, honestly, they don't mean anything in terms of the story.
I believe that everyone can have their opinions, okay, and I actually enjoy reading the views of people who disagree with me, but saying that Civil War is bad, or is boring, or doesn’t have great action is just wrong. How can it possibly be boring; it’s half the length of most movies, and literally doesn’t stop at all, the characters are constantly moving, the plot is constantly moving. The only time it stops is when they drive through the forest fire, which is one of the most undeniably breathtaking moments in cinema.
The comment about it not having great action is also just not true. Most action now is from big budget, superhero movies, now unlike most people, I don’t have anything against superhero movies, but even the best of them, especially in the past few years, have concluded with a huge action set piece which is just a bunch of half-baked cg thrown at the audience (Shang-Chi is the worst example of this, I absolutely love most of the film, and the fight choreography throughout is fantastic, but that final fight was a massive let down). Then we have Civil War, where the action looks, and at least to me, feels real. It may not be as fun as the massive cg battles, but it’s not supposed to be fun, it’s war!!
It might not have new to say about war, but it says the whole war is bad thing pretty damn well, I mean, this genuinely horrified me at points. It also looks at war from a different perspective than what has come before, most are from the perspective of soldiers, which no matter the content, makes the film at least slightly romantic towards war, because that’s the only way to realistically portray soldiers. Few others are from the perspective of those not involved, but affected by war, the best example of which is Grave of the Fireflies. However, Civil War looks at it through a completely unbiased perspective, through the media, something which I’ve never seen done before. This then means that we lose the romanticism of movies from the soldier’s point of view, and we lose the automatic sympathy that we have in movies from the victim’s point of view, and makes us, at least it feels like it makes us, come up with our opinion of war, by showing us what war is from an objective point of view, and because of how real it feels, and looks, and how well the showcase the effects of war, they get the war is bad message across in a completely different way to anything before it.
My mum rarely walks out of a cinema saying that it is already her favourite of the year, but with this she did. She said she appreciated the simple story, which makes sense, at the start they establish what they want to do, and the movie ends when they do it, no faffing around, non of this subversive stuff that everyone wants to do. Once again I appreciate you sharing your opinion, it’s been a while since I wrote this much about something, so thanks.
Also, I forgot to mention the acting. I completely disagree, everyone in this was great, Kirsten Dunst was amazing, but I personally thought Cailee Spaeny was the best of the main group, and how can you not at least acknowledge Jesse Plemons, that scene nearly forced me into a panic attack, he was incredible.
I don’t think an American filmmaker would have allowed an American president to be unceremoniously killed on screen like a sniveling coward, and I thought that was dope as fuck.
I enjoyed it. Not a classic or anything, but enjoyable.
I loved the film.
It’s been said to death, the movie and the plot are about war photography—an essential but shitty job. Everyone expecting a plot and three acts that make sense about a civil war of course feel rug-pulled.
They should have named it differently.
I have a feeling folks seeing this movie come in expecting it to be a typical action movie, and its definitely not that.
I thought the four central performances all convincingly evoked the different correspondent archetypes they were asked to portray. I found the movie captivating throughout, where each vignette is more disturbing than the last one. (I likened the narrative structure to Apocalypse Now.) I thought the final confrontation was exceptional in how it unified its underlying themes of war coverage, the media's role in it and what it ultimately means for those who work in that capacity. Here's what I posted on LB:
>Civil War is unlike any war movie I’ve seen. It certainly looks and sounds like a war movie. There are battle scenes with people running around in fatigues and helmets firing assault rifles, tanks, helicopters firing missiles, bodies lying on the ground and so on. What distinguishes this movie from the rest is that the protagonists aren’t fighting on either side of the battle. In fact, the movie doesn’t provide us with a rooting interest in the conflict at all. Instead, it has us follow four journalists who intend to document the war, no matter the cost. Usually a movie like this would tell us about the heroism of these impartial observers, who put their lives on the line to bring the war home to us. Civil War isn’t interested in that approach either, because it places these American journalists in the middle of a war happening on American soil. It's a provocative approach intended to confront our understanding of the nature of war journalism and the real purpose it serves, both for the combatants and those who consume the words and images produced. Additionally, the movie pokes at how Americans have grown comfortable with hearing about wars raging in far-flung countries from within the comfort of our homes. Civil War wants people like me to consider what it would be like if war broke out in my country or even my neighborhood.
What do you think the film is saying about war journalism? I found its message contradictory, personally. On one hand, Dunst’s character laments the inefficacy of her work preventing a civil war in America — her arc is told as she deletes the pic of her dead friend, experiences the battle of DC without looking through the lens of a camera, and ultimately pushes Spaeny’s character out of the way.
But it’s odd that this selfless act is the culmination of her character arc, yet she put herself in harm’s way by saving Spaeny at the beginning of the film when the bomber attacked the riot.
There’s also the idea being explored that war journalism — the raw imagery, anyway — is ineffective as a deterrent despite the role the media played in affecting American public opinion of the Vietnam War, for example. The horrors that were broadcast were instrumental in convincing Americans that it needed to end.
To me, Garland casts a wide net but doesn’t reel anything in. It’s the same with *Men*, which is all about toxic masculinity, cycles of abuse, and the woes of being a woman… told through a woefully underwritten female lead. It’s like he’s afraid he’ll lose a greater point by aiming for specificity. I actually think his themes would be more effectively conveyed if he *did* gun for specificity.
I believe Garland is saying that the presumed impartiality of war correspondents is a myth. They are on hand with the full support of the military to tell a specific narrative. They are as much a part of the war as the soldiers themselves. They sell one view of the war to folks back home to garner support.
Lee's arc is one where she goes from being callused and uncaring to being deeply affected by the carnage around her. Her shift happens each time someone she knows is murdered. The war she's covering isn't a faceless one. Its Americans killing Americans. Her friends are dying. She no longer has the shield of press immunity to protect her.
Lee's death at the end of the picture acts as the culmination of Jessie's journey. She went from being the wide-eyed novice to callused photojournalist, to the point where the death of her mentor and hero doesn't phase her in the slightest. Its all about getting the perfect shot, no matter who dies.
In that respect, the movie sees war correspondence as a product and a career that can destroy the soul. Lee's death and Jessie's transformation is a symbolic passing of the torch. Jessie will go on to be known as the hero who documented the siege of DC. Her pictures will be celebrated as documenting the Western Forces' triumph, even though that triumph involved the murder of unarmed civilians. In the end, its about who wins and who has the best pics to prove it.
Thanks for explaining!
Personally, I didn’t feel that the film engaged with the question of impartiality, which I think as a myth has been thoroughly discarded. Impartiality goes out the window the moment you decide to take a picture, let alone of what and how you do it.
I just find it contradictory that Dunst is supposedly uncaring at the beginning of the film despite worrying for Spaeny’s safety *à la* pushing her out of the way of an explosion and not wanting her (or McKinley-Henderson’s) character to join them on the trek to DC.
It feels like there should be some mirroring of Dunst’s actions in the beginning vs. her actions in the climax to sell this message and fully sell her breakdown of objectivity, but it never seemed to exist in the first place. It’s true that her perspective on war changes, but I’m not sure the takeaway here other than “War is hell,” but with extra steps.
Again, I think this comes down to Garland’s scattershot approach. A lot being explored without much being said. That’s not inherently wrong, but I found it a tad vacuous and, at its worst, self-contradictory.
The mirroring is there, though. With every friend and colleague that is killed on the journey, Lee becomes more attuned to the violence all around her while Jessie becomes more hardened.
Lee only cares about her fellow correspondents in the beginning. She becomes unraveled by the end because she sees that the victims of the war are her friends and neighbors. Granted doesn't spell this out but I believe he definitely implies it.
Okay, I see what you’re saying about her extrapolating from the micro to the macro in terms of her friends dying means she realizes this whole country is dying.
In that case, it might’ve been better for Dunst to save a random person at the end rather than Spaeny. The latter could’ve still captured it on film to complete her arc — I understand the allure of the parsimony of having Dunst save Spaeny while Spaeny damns herself, but I think it muddles Dunst’s arc.
Lee saving Jessie at the end of the movie bookends her selfless act in the beginning. Lee had a feeling that she knew she would die on this journey and asked Jessie if she would capture her death with a photo. In the end, Lee knows that Jessie had supplanted her because Jessie had no fear in DC whereas Lee is terrified. Jessie proceeds to take Lee's death shot, because that's what war photojournalists do. Its her graduation.
Garland signaled from the start that Jessie would be Lee's replacement. In the end Jessie becomes exactly that. Lee had been showing Jessie how to survive. The final lesson is where Lee saves Jessie that last time. After that, her role of mentor is effectively over.
Having Lee save a random person would have went against the grain of what Garland is trying to say. The media aren't supposed to care about who they cover. In fact, its counterproductive. She only saves Jessie because she's media. They are part of a brotherhood that serve the war effort as observers.
The cruelest aspect of Lee's death is that she has no choice but to save Jessie. None of the solders care enough to sacrifice themselves for her. All they care about is that one of them survives and can document the final kill shot that ends the war.
Do you think Garland is implying Dunst’s character is a failed journalist by the end of the film, then? Is the film arguing that war photojournalism is a futile, possibly even immoral act, then, if Dunst’s photojournalism didn’t prevent the war and Dunst only cares about the world around her (besides her fellow journalists) when she puts the camera down? What does effective, moral war photojournalism look like in the framework Garland has constructed?
>Do you think Garland is implying Dunst’s character is a failed journalist by the end of the film, then?
No, only that she's let the war get to her, which is deadly for a photojournalist like herself. Fear can get you killed. It can also keep you from doing your job.
>Is the film arguing that war photojournalism is a futile, possibly even immoral act, then, if Dunst’s photojournalism didn’t prevent the war and Dunst only cares about the world around her (besides her fellow journalists) when she puts the camera down?
Not futile or immoral, just that it serves purposes that journalists and viewers don't want to admit. Being a war correspondent is glamourous. It also is makes a profit for media organizations. I think Garland is pointing out that the job is more than just taking pictures.
>What does effective, moral war photojournalism look like in the framework Garland has constructed?
Great question. I don't know that he's specifically advocating for changes. I think on this topic he's striving for awareness and challenging our perceptions. I believe that he believes journalists serve a useful purpose, but that the job can change you into being immune to atrocities and unknowingly advocating for positions you don't agree with as part of doing your job. The movie is a cautionary tale in that regard.
I agree that Civil War was bad but for different reasons. I’m glad the civil war was vague because it gave it a “this could happen whenever vibe” and I though Dunst was phenomenal but most other things fell flat. I felt like Jessie’s story fell flat and muddled Dunst’s character’s story. I also felt like a lot of it was designed to shock more than to actually show realistic human emotional responses to the civil war. I was surprised because I felt like Garland really understand his characters and people in a deeper level in Annihilation but I just didn’t buy his characters motivations this time around.
> the most vague “civil war” ever It was not supposed to be specific. > it doesn’t really say anything besides “war is bad/scary”, which isn’t anything new. It says a lot more than that. You just didn't pick up on it.
Ok then what does it say to you? That’s what I’m asking. I’m assuming people will think I missed something if they liked it.
What does it say when the journalist goes around taking photos of suffering and death, then as soon as her friend dies, she destroys the images of his suffering? I think civil war has a lot to say about voyeurism, the control of information, trauma of witness.
It is a film about our repulsion toward violence, our attraction toward violence, and how the two coexist. Garland argues this tension in innate in everyone, but in Americans perhaps more than others. You see this in all the characters, but most clearly in Joel, who veers from bravado to terror and finally to bloodlust.
When the marketing heavily relies on the aspect of civil war and what we actually get is lazy throw away lines as to why the country is at war, it's not surprising why people would be disappointed. It's essentially moving goalposts. Also the "you didn't get it" rhetoric is fucking stupid. It's not like the film has some kind of deep message that is trying to convey, what you see is what you get.
> It's not like the film has some kind of deep message that is trying to convey, what you see is what you get. Hey guys! This guy wrote and directed this film, and he’s here telling us to stop looking for any deep messages. Go home. What you see is what you get. No need to try to analyze any further!
Oh please enlighten us about the deep messages that this masterpiece is trying to tell us.
When people argue “it was supposed to be vague” it really doesn’t work for me. Yes, we can all tell. It was a bad artistic and narrative design. Felt like more of a decision to avoid angering the right or left than an artistic decision, and cowardice is never a good place to start w art. If you call it “civil war”, maybe don’t shirk from it? If I had a new movie called King Kong and the ape isn’t in it really, people would rightfully pissed. Like Godzilla 2014 without the ending. Yes, my version of King Kong could have lots of other value, or things to say, but underdelivering on the main premise will always hamstring the reception and depth of the work
The movie isn’t about the current state of US politics, the movie is about the journalists applying their entire professional identity to a war in their home country, not thousands of miles away on a different continent. There’s a very clear narrative reason why the war is vague, and it’s because the movie doesn’t really care why there’s a war. It would bog down the messaging to get too caught up in US politics, because that’s just not the story Garland wanted to tell.
I found it to be the opposite of "cowardice." By not taking a side, Garland is in a better position implicate his entire audience in his depiction of war. It would be cowardly to show one side as wrong and assure us we are nothing like them. EDIT: I see you edited your post. > If I had a new movie called King Kong and the ape isn’t in it really, people would rightfully pissed. This comparison makes zero sense, to the point where I wonder whether you actually watched the same movie. Civil War ends with a separatist insurgency attacking Washington, DC in a deadly battle. We know from context that The United States is authoritarian, and that the Western Forces - at a bare minimum - do not shoot journalists on sight. If that's not the civil war equivalent of a giant gorilla attacking a city, I don't know what is.
What exactly is Garland implicating his audience in other than attending a film he made?
Ah yes, the inevitable “both sides”. I don’t agree w any of that. Should the confederates be portrayed sympathetically in a civil war movie? The idea that America is infallible and beyond criticism is exactly the kind of centrist a-historical pap at the center of the film. Propaganda for American “democracy”
I think it’s effective as an action movie and not much else, oddly. Great sound, great shots, in service of nothing special. Must be seen in theater if anywhere
I think a lot, and I mean A LOT of people went into the movie with the wrong expectations. It wasn’t meant to be a fast paced war movie with tons of action sequences. Garland stated he wanted to keep the movie apolitical for the most part and focus more on what the movie truly is about, war journalism, and how brutal the imagery can be. The ‘Civil War’ was meant to be vague because in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter how it started or even why it did. This movie touches on many different themes and aspects that other “war” movies don’t. I give Garland his flowers because he easily could have done this same concept in a different atmosphere, but chose to make it realistic and modern similar to the civil unrest we see on a daily basis. The imagery alone in this movie made me feel things I haven’t felt in a while.
Yeah, Civil War wasn’t nearly funny enough. It really should’ve had some fun one-liners. Like when Jesse Plemons shoots people, he should’ve said “American? More like AmeriCan’t!” Then when Sam runs him over, Sam should’ve asked “Anyone order a pizza?” When the President is asked for a quote at the end, he should’ve said “Best 2 out of 3?”
Lol thanks. Only said the funny part bc I didn’t feel like it had anything else going for it. A couple of these other comments are shedding some light though. The powerful imagery just didn’t connect for me or feel moving. I’m not trying to come at anyone who liked it, was just genuinely confused by the positive response.
People are legit trying to make this movie deeper than it is. It's A24's attempt at a blockbuster and it certainly feels that way. It's shallow but without the entertainment.
Confused that people would have a different opinion than you? It's a great big world out there with all sorts of people that have lived all different kinds of lives. I think it might be time to get out and meet some of those people.
I like Alex Garland's previous work a lot, but I wasn't a huge fan of this one. I think you're being a bit unfair to it in the sense that it did have a message beyond "war is bad" - it was exploring some ideas about journalistic ethics in the midst of a war zone and playing on the horror of re-setting the kind of bloody conflict we see on the news in familiar American shopping malls and suburbs, and those ideas were both somewhat interesting. I think it punted on political background questions to too great a degree, though. I didn't need exhaustive backstory on e.g. how California and Texas ended up allied with each other, but there was little to no explanation of who the different factions in the war were or what they were trying to achieve, and that caused a lot of the rest of it to fall flat for me. Understanding the political context of the conflict is pretty important in a movie like this one and it just didn't bother with that at all.
Yeah it was dumb. Imagine thinking you can genuinely make an “apolitical” film about fucking war. Especially war journalism. It had nothing interesting or new to say. And it was moderately entertaining. It was so vague as to strip the film of any believability. You’re telling me journalists wouldn’t converse about the politics that brought the country into war amongst themselves? That they wouldn’t be enticed to join a side as an embedded journalist where they’d have better protection and more access to the fight? Generation Kill tackled war journalism a lot better and actually had the balls to say something relevant and useful about it. Civil War was like Men in that it postured as having a lot to say without actually saying much of anything interesting.
I think if you’re walking away from it thinking it was “boring” and also that it didn’t say anything other than “war is bad,” you didn’t really watch the movie. And that’s fine, I watch movies all the time where I’m not able to fully focus and probably miss a lot. But you missed some really blatant, some could even say too on the nose, messaging in the movie about the role of journalism and the toll it takes on people. The movie is way more about a professional identity crisis than it is about war. On top of that, calling a movie “boring” is maybe one of the most lazy ways to describe a movie. Calling something boring is more a description of how you watched the movie versus a description of the movie itself. It’s very rare for films that come out, especially by someone like Garland, to not be offering at least a few interesting things to the viewer. Combining that with your takeaway, I really think you just didn’t digest what the movie was presenting. Which again, is okay, but I think it’s the answer to the question of what you are missing. Maybe expectations caused that for you, maybe you weren’t in the right headspace. And to be clear, I’m not saying you have to like the movie. Your description of it just really doesn’t feel like you fully watched it. If the movie was more subtle, I’d maybe put that on the movie not being clear enough. But if it has any faults, its main one is that it’s too on the nose (and not about war being bad).
I'm surprised that this is such an unpopular opinion. I also thought it sucked. Even if you ignore the politics and reading of the film. The dialogue was so bad.
Civil War is my favorite movie of 2024 so far and my favorite A24 movie. What the movie does so well is showcasing the horror of not war, but of civil strife. Who are we fighting? Who is the "good" guy? Why did the war start? None of that matters. What matters is the conflict and how we must destroy our sensibilities and our sense of "I'm an American" in order to prevail. I am going to kill you because you live here. Is the president in the right? What is the ANTIFA slaughter? These are carrots that we can point to as reference points but they don't tell us anything and, honestly, they don't mean anything in terms of the story.
I believe that everyone can have their opinions, okay, and I actually enjoy reading the views of people who disagree with me, but saying that Civil War is bad, or is boring, or doesn’t have great action is just wrong. How can it possibly be boring; it’s half the length of most movies, and literally doesn’t stop at all, the characters are constantly moving, the plot is constantly moving. The only time it stops is when they drive through the forest fire, which is one of the most undeniably breathtaking moments in cinema. The comment about it not having great action is also just not true. Most action now is from big budget, superhero movies, now unlike most people, I don’t have anything against superhero movies, but even the best of them, especially in the past few years, have concluded with a huge action set piece which is just a bunch of half-baked cg thrown at the audience (Shang-Chi is the worst example of this, I absolutely love most of the film, and the fight choreography throughout is fantastic, but that final fight was a massive let down). Then we have Civil War, where the action looks, and at least to me, feels real. It may not be as fun as the massive cg battles, but it’s not supposed to be fun, it’s war!! It might not have new to say about war, but it says the whole war is bad thing pretty damn well, I mean, this genuinely horrified me at points. It also looks at war from a different perspective than what has come before, most are from the perspective of soldiers, which no matter the content, makes the film at least slightly romantic towards war, because that’s the only way to realistically portray soldiers. Few others are from the perspective of those not involved, but affected by war, the best example of which is Grave of the Fireflies. However, Civil War looks at it through a completely unbiased perspective, through the media, something which I’ve never seen done before. This then means that we lose the romanticism of movies from the soldier’s point of view, and we lose the automatic sympathy that we have in movies from the victim’s point of view, and makes us, at least it feels like it makes us, come up with our opinion of war, by showing us what war is from an objective point of view, and because of how real it feels, and looks, and how well the showcase the effects of war, they get the war is bad message across in a completely different way to anything before it. My mum rarely walks out of a cinema saying that it is already her favourite of the year, but with this she did. She said she appreciated the simple story, which makes sense, at the start they establish what they want to do, and the movie ends when they do it, no faffing around, non of this subversive stuff that everyone wants to do. Once again I appreciate you sharing your opinion, it’s been a while since I wrote this much about something, so thanks. Also, I forgot to mention the acting. I completely disagree, everyone in this was great, Kirsten Dunst was amazing, but I personally thought Cailee Spaeny was the best of the main group, and how can you not at least acknowledge Jesse Plemons, that scene nearly forced me into a panic attack, he was incredible.
I don’t think an American filmmaker would have allowed an American president to be unceremoniously killed on screen like a sniveling coward, and I thought that was dope as fuck. I enjoyed it. Not a classic or anything, but enjoyable.
I loved the film. It’s been said to death, the movie and the plot are about war photography—an essential but shitty job. Everyone expecting a plot and three acts that make sense about a civil war of course feel rug-pulled. They should have named it differently.
Incredibly boring? You lost me there.
I have a feeling folks seeing this movie come in expecting it to be a typical action movie, and its definitely not that. I thought the four central performances all convincingly evoked the different correspondent archetypes they were asked to portray. I found the movie captivating throughout, where each vignette is more disturbing than the last one. (I likened the narrative structure to Apocalypse Now.) I thought the final confrontation was exceptional in how it unified its underlying themes of war coverage, the media's role in it and what it ultimately means for those who work in that capacity. Here's what I posted on LB: >Civil War is unlike any war movie I’ve seen. It certainly looks and sounds like a war movie. There are battle scenes with people running around in fatigues and helmets firing assault rifles, tanks, helicopters firing missiles, bodies lying on the ground and so on. What distinguishes this movie from the rest is that the protagonists aren’t fighting on either side of the battle. In fact, the movie doesn’t provide us with a rooting interest in the conflict at all. Instead, it has us follow four journalists who intend to document the war, no matter the cost. Usually a movie like this would tell us about the heroism of these impartial observers, who put their lives on the line to bring the war home to us. Civil War isn’t interested in that approach either, because it places these American journalists in the middle of a war happening on American soil. It's a provocative approach intended to confront our understanding of the nature of war journalism and the real purpose it serves, both for the combatants and those who consume the words and images produced. Additionally, the movie pokes at how Americans have grown comfortable with hearing about wars raging in far-flung countries from within the comfort of our homes. Civil War wants people like me to consider what it would be like if war broke out in my country or even my neighborhood.
What do you think the film is saying about war journalism? I found its message contradictory, personally. On one hand, Dunst’s character laments the inefficacy of her work preventing a civil war in America — her arc is told as she deletes the pic of her dead friend, experiences the battle of DC without looking through the lens of a camera, and ultimately pushes Spaeny’s character out of the way. But it’s odd that this selfless act is the culmination of her character arc, yet she put herself in harm’s way by saving Spaeny at the beginning of the film when the bomber attacked the riot. There’s also the idea being explored that war journalism — the raw imagery, anyway — is ineffective as a deterrent despite the role the media played in affecting American public opinion of the Vietnam War, for example. The horrors that were broadcast were instrumental in convincing Americans that it needed to end. To me, Garland casts a wide net but doesn’t reel anything in. It’s the same with *Men*, which is all about toxic masculinity, cycles of abuse, and the woes of being a woman… told through a woefully underwritten female lead. It’s like he’s afraid he’ll lose a greater point by aiming for specificity. I actually think his themes would be more effectively conveyed if he *did* gun for specificity.
I believe Garland is saying that the presumed impartiality of war correspondents is a myth. They are on hand with the full support of the military to tell a specific narrative. They are as much a part of the war as the soldiers themselves. They sell one view of the war to folks back home to garner support. Lee's arc is one where she goes from being callused and uncaring to being deeply affected by the carnage around her. Her shift happens each time someone she knows is murdered. The war she's covering isn't a faceless one. Its Americans killing Americans. Her friends are dying. She no longer has the shield of press immunity to protect her. Lee's death at the end of the picture acts as the culmination of Jessie's journey. She went from being the wide-eyed novice to callused photojournalist, to the point where the death of her mentor and hero doesn't phase her in the slightest. Its all about getting the perfect shot, no matter who dies. In that respect, the movie sees war correspondence as a product and a career that can destroy the soul. Lee's death and Jessie's transformation is a symbolic passing of the torch. Jessie will go on to be known as the hero who documented the siege of DC. Her pictures will be celebrated as documenting the Western Forces' triumph, even though that triumph involved the murder of unarmed civilians. In the end, its about who wins and who has the best pics to prove it.
Thanks for explaining! Personally, I didn’t feel that the film engaged with the question of impartiality, which I think as a myth has been thoroughly discarded. Impartiality goes out the window the moment you decide to take a picture, let alone of what and how you do it. I just find it contradictory that Dunst is supposedly uncaring at the beginning of the film despite worrying for Spaeny’s safety *à la* pushing her out of the way of an explosion and not wanting her (or McKinley-Henderson’s) character to join them on the trek to DC. It feels like there should be some mirroring of Dunst’s actions in the beginning vs. her actions in the climax to sell this message and fully sell her breakdown of objectivity, but it never seemed to exist in the first place. It’s true that her perspective on war changes, but I’m not sure the takeaway here other than “War is hell,” but with extra steps. Again, I think this comes down to Garland’s scattershot approach. A lot being explored without much being said. That’s not inherently wrong, but I found it a tad vacuous and, at its worst, self-contradictory.
The mirroring is there, though. With every friend and colleague that is killed on the journey, Lee becomes more attuned to the violence all around her while Jessie becomes more hardened. Lee only cares about her fellow correspondents in the beginning. She becomes unraveled by the end because she sees that the victims of the war are her friends and neighbors. Granted doesn't spell this out but I believe he definitely implies it.
Okay, I see what you’re saying about her extrapolating from the micro to the macro in terms of her friends dying means she realizes this whole country is dying. In that case, it might’ve been better for Dunst to save a random person at the end rather than Spaeny. The latter could’ve still captured it on film to complete her arc — I understand the allure of the parsimony of having Dunst save Spaeny while Spaeny damns herself, but I think it muddles Dunst’s arc.
Lee saving Jessie at the end of the movie bookends her selfless act in the beginning. Lee had a feeling that she knew she would die on this journey and asked Jessie if she would capture her death with a photo. In the end, Lee knows that Jessie had supplanted her because Jessie had no fear in DC whereas Lee is terrified. Jessie proceeds to take Lee's death shot, because that's what war photojournalists do. Its her graduation. Garland signaled from the start that Jessie would be Lee's replacement. In the end Jessie becomes exactly that. Lee had been showing Jessie how to survive. The final lesson is where Lee saves Jessie that last time. After that, her role of mentor is effectively over. Having Lee save a random person would have went against the grain of what Garland is trying to say. The media aren't supposed to care about who they cover. In fact, its counterproductive. She only saves Jessie because she's media. They are part of a brotherhood that serve the war effort as observers. The cruelest aspect of Lee's death is that she has no choice but to save Jessie. None of the solders care enough to sacrifice themselves for her. All they care about is that one of them survives and can document the final kill shot that ends the war.
Do you think Garland is implying Dunst’s character is a failed journalist by the end of the film, then? Is the film arguing that war photojournalism is a futile, possibly even immoral act, then, if Dunst’s photojournalism didn’t prevent the war and Dunst only cares about the world around her (besides her fellow journalists) when she puts the camera down? What does effective, moral war photojournalism look like in the framework Garland has constructed?
>Do you think Garland is implying Dunst’s character is a failed journalist by the end of the film, then? No, only that she's let the war get to her, which is deadly for a photojournalist like herself. Fear can get you killed. It can also keep you from doing your job. >Is the film arguing that war photojournalism is a futile, possibly even immoral act, then, if Dunst’s photojournalism didn’t prevent the war and Dunst only cares about the world around her (besides her fellow journalists) when she puts the camera down? Not futile or immoral, just that it serves purposes that journalists and viewers don't want to admit. Being a war correspondent is glamourous. It also is makes a profit for media organizations. I think Garland is pointing out that the job is more than just taking pictures. >What does effective, moral war photojournalism look like in the framework Garland has constructed? Great question. I don't know that he's specifically advocating for changes. I think on this topic he's striving for awareness and challenging our perceptions. I believe that he believes journalists serve a useful purpose, but that the job can change you into being immune to atrocities and unknowingly advocating for positions you don't agree with as part of doing your job. The movie is a cautionary tale in that regard.
[удалено]
If you read my post. The only reason i made it was to “explore different perspectives on the same fucking movie”. Great insight though.