Ahead of its release, the movie by Alex Garland about a second US civil war has been widely panned in alternate history circles for the implausibility of its premise--indeed, it is virtually impossible to think of a realistic scenario in which Texas and California take the joint leadership of an armed rebellion against the federal government.
Yet this review by Vox's Zack Beauchamp claims that the very decision to leave out the details of how the country got there was the right one, as it allows the story to focus on what's really important in a civil war, namely the breakdown of trust and order.
Yet this review by Vox's Zack Beauchamp claims that the very decision to leave out the details of how the country got there was the right one, as it allows the story to focus on what's really important in a civil war, namely the breakdown of trust and order.
“Civil War” has little to say about America — but a lot to say about war
Thankfully, Civil War is not the film I was led to believe. The movie begins near the end of the conflict, providing little context about how things got so bad in fictional America. There are stray hints — the president (Nick Offerman) is in his third term and has disbanded the FBI — but nothing that could help the viewer understand why the United States collapsed into bloodshed. Contrary to marketing, and perhaps even the director’s intent, Civil War has virtually nothing to say about real-world American politics.
But this doesn’t mean the film is a failure — far from it. Once you understand that Civil War isn’t about what you think, you can appreciate it for what it actually is: a searing meditation on what happens when political orders collapse and violence takes on a sinister logic of its own.
In doing so, it channels some of the best modern academic research on violence in civil wars.
Such a film has little to say about contemporary American politics. But the imagery and places may help American audiences connect more easily to the subtler story it’s actually telling: about how people in real-life civil wars make life into hell for the people caught up in them.
It is less a film about political polarization, or even the headline-dominating wars in Gaza and Ukraine, than one about the long and bloody counterinsurgency wars that defined the war on terror era.