My Name is Kleber Mendonça Filho and I wrote and directed “The Secret Agent.” This sequence takes place in 1977 and it comes quite late in the film. I kind of knew it would be an important sequence for “The Secret Agent,” because this is where we finally get to spend some time with the people who are staying at Sebastiana’s building, and it would always be a challenging sequence from the point of view of writing and also of shooting. So we have Isabél Zuaa playing Tereza Victória. We have Licínio Januário, who plays her husband. Hermila Guedes plays Claudia. João Vitor Silva plays Haroldo. Tânia Maria, of course, who’s playing Dona Sebastiana. We have Lula Terra and also Gal, who’s asleep, and we have Robson, who plays Clóvis. The whole sequence was incredibly challenging because we had one night. This is a night shoot. We shot from 7 p.m. until 4:30 a.m. and my biggest concern was that I wouldn’t be able to do justice to each and every character and to honor them, because I love each and every one of these characters. And also these actors. And with two cameras, anamorphic Panavision lenses, three mics, about 30 crew, three dogs, a cat. We had a lot to get done, not only in terms of the shots, but also dramatically because the sequence begins very light hearted and then it moves towards a change in the atmosphere in the room. But the whole sequence, I think, works because of the great acting and also because of quite a lot of affection that comes through in the text. Wagner’s character, he takes a “why not, what the hell” attitude towards hiding his name. He just reveals who he is and that has an effect on his friends. Licínio always very skeptical as Antonio, Tereza Victória’s husband in the film. They are from Angola. And slowly we bring new layers of meaning in terms of what it means to be getting by in an authoritarian regime, in a situation where you’re under threat. [TELEPHONE RINGING] The telephone, the way it rings, we mixed it a little louder than it would probably sound. Nadia Comaneci, the great Romanian gymnast, is in the background there with Wagner. And this is when Sebastiana truly shows how much she cares for these people. She actually says, I don’t want you to feel sad. Let me show you my little museum. And this moment, I think, it really opens up a new window into the film because we now realize that Sebastiana herself, she has a history in another country, and she has gone through a lot in life, much like everybody else in the film and much like all these characters. I never really wanted to do this sequence handheld. I always thought that it should be exactly the way it looks: very precise shots, well composed. I really wanted the actors and the characters to live within the frame without any extra energy coming from the camera itself and the Panavision aspect ratio, really, I think it’s amazing to get people into the frame. And Gal, little Gal, she was supposed to have a few lines in the film, but she was so sleepy and I thought, let’s just let her sleep. And then at some point I asked Evgenia, let’s get a few shots of her actually sleeping. And sure enough, when we were editing the sequence, we had a look at her sleeping, and I think it’s a beautiful way to end the sequence. She’s actually sleeping and maybe dreaming of a better Brazil.
Wagner Moura is no stranger to intense roles, but his latest performance in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent” may be the one that defines his career, at least to U.S. audiences.
The Brazilian actor, known to American audiences from Netflix’s “Narcos,” won the best actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of Marcelo, a technology expert swept up in the political turmoil of Brazil’s waning dictatorship in 1977. Since then, the film has been on the festival circuit, making stops at the Telluride Film Festival, and now TIFF, building more buzz and launching Moura into serious contention for best actor.
Set during Recife’s carnival, the historical political thriller follows Marcelo as he attempts to flee persecution while reconnecting with his estranged son. For Moura, the role was both a homecoming and a reckoning.
“It was liberating to do something in Portuguese again,” Moura tells Variety. “The last time I acted in my language was more than a decade ago. To return to my home, to Recife, to work with Kleber — it was like going back to the roots of why I became an actor.”
Moura and Mendonça Filho’s connection dates back nearly two decades, when the actor first encountered the director’s shorts and, later, his breakthrough “Neighboring Sounds.” Moura recalls meeting him at Cannes in 2005, when Mendonça Filho was still a critic.
“He’s my cinematic soulmate,” Moura shares. “He’s deeply political, but also deeply Brazilian. He can take influences from American films of the 1970s — the lenses, the structure — and make it something that belongs only to Brazil. That’s rare.”
That creative fusion paid off at Cannes. “The Secret Agent” was one of the festival’s most celebrated titles, winning best director, the FIPRESCI Prize and the Art House Cinema Award, alongside Moura’s own acting honor. It would be picked up by Neon, and is now getting a full-court Oscar campaign, seeking noms for international feature and even, best picture.
Though Marcelo is the central character, the film’s emotional heart lies in his fractured relationship with his son Fernando. Moura admits he approached the roles in stages, first inhabiting Marcelo fully before considering Fernando.
“I wanted people to feel like they were watching two different people,” he says. “For me, it was about imagining what it meant for a child to grow up not knowing his father. I have three sons myself. My father passed away. That father-and-son theme — that’s what moves me the most as an actor.” He compares the emotional intensity to playing Hamlet in his early 30s. “That was the greatest acting experience of my life. And this film touched the same part of me.”
If Moura’s performance in “The Secret Agent” translates into an Oscar nomination, it would mark a historic milestone. In nearly a century of the Academy Awards, only five Latino men have ever been nominated for best actor — including José Ferrer, Anthony Quinn, Edward James Olmos, Demián Bichir and Colman Domingo. Moura would not only join their ranks as the sixth, but he would also be the first Brazilian ever recognized in the category, coming one year after Fernanda Torres from “I’m Still Here” became the second in best actress, following her mother Fernanda Montenegro 30 years earlier. “I’m Still Here” also picked up a surprise (and earned) best picture nomination, and went on to win international feature, the first for the country of Brazil.
Since “Narcos,” Moura has been selective about his roles in the United States. “Can you imagine the amount of offers I got to play drug dealers after that?” he says, shaking his head. “I felt a responsibility as a Latino actor not to reinforce stereotypes. I want the same kinds of roles any white American actor would be offered. That’s the real fight.”
He recalls constantly pushing for his characters to be Brazilian rather than generically “Latino.” “It’s strange — people rarely think of Brazilians when they say Latino. But I insist on it. Why not Brazilian?” Beyond acting, Moura is stepping behind the camera again. His 2017 feature “Marighella” tackled dictatorship head-on. Next up is “Last Night at the Lobster,” an English-language adaptation of Stewart O’Nan’s novel, produced by Peter Saraf (“Little Miss Sunshine”). The film, which he describes as an “anti-capitalist Christmas movie,” will star Elisabeth Moss, Brian Tyree Henry and Sofia Carson. Set in a Red Lobster franchise about to close during a snowstorm a week before Christmas, the story blends American holiday traditions with European realism.
“It’s about empathy and generosity. There’s no magic from Santa Claus. The magic comes from people,” Moura says.
The themes of “The Secret Agent” — memory, truth and resilience — resonate beyond Brazil. Moura sees echoes between his country’s recent struggles and the United States’ own democratic challenges. “Brazilians know what dictatorship is. Americans don’t,” he says bluntly. “That’s why we were efficient in defending democracy when our institutions were attacked. Here in the U.S., people sometimes take democracy for granted. That scares me.”
He worries about truth itself becoming malleable. “Facts don’t exist anymore. There are only versions, narratives. That’s dangerous.”
With “The Secret Agent” opening in Brazil this November through Vitrine Filmes, Moura stands at a new crossroads in his international career. Still, he remains grounded. “It’s about sticking to your values in tough times,” he shares. “That’s what this film is about. That’s what I want my sons to remember.”
Sadly, it’s not really a stretch to imagine the United States finding itself in a second Civil War. Perhaps this is why writer-director Alex Garland doesn’t get too specific on the details of “why” (racial tensions, political divisions, an unhinged president—take your pick from a gamut of ever-brewing causes). In fact, Garland in general is not a “details guy,” preferring instead to focus on the “big ideas” of what he’s saying. And what he’s saying here isn’t necessarily related to being a “cautionary tale” (in truth, he appears to view another civil war in the U.S. as a mere inevitability), so much as the need for “elder generations” to do whatever they can to ensure the success of the younger ones, no matter how fucked and ostensibly beyond repair the world might be.
Garland’s (or A24’s) decision to release the film months before what is likely to be an extremely fraught and polarizing election is surely not a coincidence. The Trumpian president (played by Nick Offerman, always happy to seem Republican), after all, ends up invoking this Civil War after, from the errant bits of dialogue that allude to it, taking an illegal third term, dissolving the FBI and banning the press from Washington, D.C. It is through the lens (no camera pun intended) of the press, as a matter of fact, that viewers are made to see this war unfold and reach its denouement.
At the center of the “war photojournalism plot” is Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), a wizened, ultra-jaded war photographer that’s been traveling the country with her colleague, Joel (Wagner Moura), to cover the calamity. At the outset of the film, the two are in New York City, where Lee initially encounters the twenty-something woman she’ll end up grudgingly (at first) mentoring. Jessie Cullen (Cailee Spaeny, continuing to come up in the world since starring in Priscilla) approaches Lee in Brooklyn (a milieu that’s no stranger to the carnage of Civil War fighting) to gush about being a fan of her work.
In this moment, one gets an All About Eve vibe from the narrative (especially when Jessie takes a picture of Lee taking a picture), and it could have gone in that direction many times were it not for Lee’s open embracement of Jessie’s aspiration to become the next great war photographer (just like another Lee with the last name of Miller, who, yes, also comes up in conversation). Rather than resenting or feeling competitive with this young talent, Lee does what she can to “subtly” direct and advise Jessie—not just on her style, but the unique and often soul-crushing demands of this job.
Before this dynamic forms, however, Lee does her best to avoid Jessie’s hopeful gaze and eagerness to learn. Alas, that plan goes to shit when her protective instincts kick into high gear upon seeing Jessie get caught in the melée just before a suicide bomber detonates himself in the crowd, sending bodies flying everywhere. Ducking down with Jessie behind a police car, Lee has it effectively confirmed for her that this girl is way too naive for the war photography game, therefore way too much of a liability (and not just an emotional one). And yet, as Joel and Lee’s mentor, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), point out, the only way to become a war photographer is to just get out there and do it—glean the brutal, sobering experience that will help shape you into one of “the greats.” Besides, Sammy adds, Lee was about the same age when she started out, too.
So it is that Jessie maneuvers and, let’s face it, manipulates her way into their dangerous expedition once Lee is “out of frame,” appealing to a drunk Joel in the hotel that she tracks them to (stalker much?). Sammy also wormed his way into the journey, but he has the pedigree and seniority to make such a request. Even though he knows that, at his age and level of decrepitude, he could be just as much of a liability as the novice. As for Lee and Joel’s “mission” with regard to venturing into the highly dangerous D.C., their dogged purpose is to snap the last photo of the president before Western Forces overtake the White House and invariably pop the “commander-in-chief” off.
That the Western Forces are comprised of California and Texas seems a bit odd, as does the fact that the “Florida Alliance” is on California’s side. Mainly because, in a scenario where a Trumpian president takes dictatorial control, it would be unlikely—fascist president or not—that the ultimate red states of Texas and Florida might 1) want to secede from the Union and 2) join forces with a “pinko” state like California. Even so, American viewers can overlook such a discrepancy (as is usually the case when British writer-directors give their perspective on the U.S. [see: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri]) if forgiving enough.
However, Garland insisted the choice was “intentional” and done “partly to get around a kind of reflexive, polarizing position that people might fall into, that’s one thing, but actually that’s not the main thing. The main thing is to do with how the president is presented and what can be inferred from that. Then it’s saying that two states that have a different political position have said, ‘Our political difference is less important than this.’” Garland added, “And then the counter to that is if you cannot conceive of that, what you’re saying is that your polarized political position would be more important than a fascist president. Which, when you put it like that, I would suggest, is insane. That’s an insane position to hold.” Clearly, then, Garland is vastly underestimating the insanity of Americans.
In any case, just as American viewers can get over this hard-to-fathom alliance, Lee can forgive Jessie her shortcomings in favor of seeing her potential as they spend more time together. Even though she mocks the “demographic” of the backseat of their Press SUV for being on the polar opposite spectrums of “retirement home” and “kindergarten,” Lee slowly loosens up just enough to allow something to happen that she never does: becoming emotionally involved (in truth, the secret to her success is avoiding that at all costs).
This “cardinal rule” of being a war photojournalist is, to be sure, what Jessie learns better than anyone by the end of the film. An ending that is foreshadowed by Jessie asking Lee if she would simply take her picture if she saw her being killed. Lee responds, “What do you think?” This exchange occurs in front of a crashed helicopter decaying in the parking lot of a post-apocalyptic J. C. Penney. In point of fact, one of the most horrifying things about Civil War is seeing that the “ruins” of America amount to nothing more than depressing malls, office space and gas stations (in other words: what the hell are these people actually fighting for?). That’s the so-called American legacy. Granted, the U.S. has produced some worthwhile entities. Like the American institution that is Madonna. Who once said of her 2003 MTV VMAs performance with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera that she was effectively “passing the baton” to the next generation of pop princesses with those “controversial” kisses (even though few people remember the one she shared with Xtina).
What one can’t help but take issue with when it comes to how that metaphorical phrase is thematically wielded in Civil War (namely, with its conclusion) is that it presumes “old” people have to step out of the way after the baton is passed because they’ve now done all they can. It’s someone else’s turn to try. However, if Madonna has shown us anything after 2003, it’s that the “aged” still often dance circles around the fearful and complacent young (who occasionally stumble into “right place, right time” circumstances like Jessie). And that a “mentor type” can coexist peacefully enough with the subsequent wave of youth (just look at Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish) without needing to “stand back” or dim their own light.
In this regard, Civil War averts the All About Eve relationship between mentor and mentee in that the Margo (Bette Davis) of the equation—Lee—isn’t painted as being “averse” to supporting new talent by continuing to try to “eclipse” them. Then again, some “old” talent can’t avoid being naturally eclipsing, can they (e.g., Dunst’s performance being far more praised than Spaeny’s)? Even after making a big production about “passing the baton.”
The trailers for Civil War, the latest film by Alex Garland, give the audience a very specific expectation of what they’re going to see. It looks like a film about a United States that is so divided politically, certain states have seceded and the country is at war. A scenario that’s, clearly, a fictionalized nightmare version of our present, where America’s Left and Right have turned to violence. And, in a way, Civil War is that. But it’s also not and that’s why it’s so damned fascinating and special.
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Written and directed by Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation), Civil War is, indeed, about a United States that’s no longer united. A United States at war with itself, hence the title. But one of the main combatants in this war is the Western Forces, a group comprised of California and Texas. Now, everyone knows California and Texas are maybe the two most polar opposite states in our current political climate. So that’s the first clue Civil War isn’t a by-the-book, pro-left, anti-right Hollywood tale. It has an agenda, for sure, and that agenda is certainly more inclusive than not, but Garland very specifically makes it clear that his America is not our America. Thereby, no matter who is watching the movie or what they believe, they can very easily enjoy the story without bias.
In other words, the movie is as objective as possible which, not coincidentally, is also the primary ideology of the film’s main characters: a group of journalists. Kirsten Dunst plays Lee, a famous war photographer traveling the country with a fellow journalist named Joel, played by Wagner Moura. After documenting a terrifying, but all too common, act of violence in New York, Lee and Joel decide to take a trip to Washington D.C. to attempt to interview the president, played by Nick Offerman. Colleague Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) thinks it’s a bad idea, but goes along for the ride anyway, and they also pick up Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), an aspiring photographer who sees Lee as a hero and mentor.
Spaney and Moura.Image: A24
And so the four journalists leave New York for D.C, which is usually an uneventful four or five-hour drive. In this world though, with everything happening across the country, it becomes a much longer, more arduous trip. Certain roads are blocked off. Other areas are not safe. And soon, the group realizes no matter which way they go, there is danger and terror at every turn.
Civil War is Alex Garland’s most mature movie to date. As he sets his characters off on this road trip, you can almost feel him not pushing the agenda one way or the other. An energy permeates the film, as if Garland wants to say something but is shaking and buzzing to hold it back. Much as the journalist heroes continue to preach objectivity and the importance of reporting the facts, no matter the circumstance, Garland too unfurls his narrative accordingly. Lee, Joel, and the crew approach each situation the same way: from a place of care and kindness. Sometimes that works, other times it doesn’t. Often, the most dangerous things we see aren’t in the center of the frame. A burning building here. A pile of bodies there. And while Joel and Lee’s distaste for the president certainly codes them as sympathetic to the WF, the film never really says what the WF stands for. We’re left to wonder, is it more Texas? Or more California?
That the film avoids ever defining the root of the conflict is one of the best things about the movie. Contrarily, one of the worst things is as the characters make the trek from New York to D.C. things can get a little repetitive. They drive, encounter an obstacle, learn something, and move on. Then they drive, encounter an obstacle, learn something, and move on again. The pattern repeats itself a few times and while each of those obstacles unfolds in a different, usually surprising way, some of the film’s momentum does falter following this structure.
Dunst and Spaeny. Image: A24
Where Civil War doesn’t falter is portraying intensity. Whenever the heroes encounter one of those obstacles, be it a booby-trapped gas station, hidden sniper, or a pink-sunglassed Jesse Plemons, the film’s tension always gets turned to 11. We are rarely sure what’s going to happen, and who is going to survive, primarily because of that objectivity. No one is treated like a hero or villain at the start. That changes scene to scene, of course, but the film, like the journalists, gives everyone an equal shot, which can be scary.
That can also make you question yourself, your biases, and more. Civil War is a film that challenges its audience to put themselves in the shoes of not just the main characters, but everyone. Partially that’s because everything in the movie seems so plausible that we see ourselves, our friends, and our neighbors in it. But it’s also because the performances are all so strong across the board that it’s easy to relate.
It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve seen Kirsten Dunst in a big, showy, starring role like this and watching Civil War, you have no idea why. Dunst gives a nuanced, powerful performance as Lee, a veteran so confident in herself that she’s almost carefree. That is until she meets Jessie. In Jessie, Lee sees a younger version of herself and it terrifies her. Lee knows Jessie, portrayed with lots of raw emotions by Spaeny, is dooming herself to danger. Choosing this life is probably the wrong thing for her. And so what should be a simple, mentor-mentee relationship is always strained. Lee sees too much of herself in Jessie, and Jessie doesn’t care.
Just another day. Image: A24
Their complex relationship, as well as the gravitas provided by Moura’s Joel and McKinley Henderson’s Sammy, come to a head in the film’s final act, which sees the team finally make it to Washington. Garland then unfurls a guttural, shocking, ground-level war in the heart of the nation’s capital, featuring views of national monuments and more that feel akin to 1996’s Independence Day. What happens in these scenes I won’t spoil, but it all builds to a final few minutes destined to be discussed and quoted for as long as movies exist. It’s that fantastic.
Ultimately, Civil War is a Rorschach test designed for maximum impact across political ideologies. You can watch it and view it however you’d like. Is not taking a side a bit of a cop-out? Should there have been a bit more of the story leaning left or right? I’d argue the fact it doesn’t have that is the authorship. Garland isn’t necessarily interested in changing anyone’s mind about anything. He wants any and everyone to consider themselves and what those differences could end up becoming. And hey, if playing it down the middle helps more people see it, that’s just a bonus.
Alex Garland’s Civil Warisn’t shy about its premise. It’s right there in the title. It’s about a United States of America that’s no longer united, with various sections engaged in a civil war. But while many would assume it’s some kind of easy-to-understand red state, blue state thing, A24 has released an image that shows it’s anything but.
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Civil War is scheduled for release April 12. In it, Kirsten Dunst and Wagner Moura play journalists attempting to travel from New York to Washington, D.C. Along the way, they pick up a young, aspiring photo journalist played by Cailee Spaeny who is about to get a baptism of fire traveling through the country.
But what does the country these characters exist in look like? Over on social media, A24 released the below image to show exactly where the divisions are in the nation and, as you’ll see, there’s a lot to discuss.
The (not so) United States of Civil War.Image: A24
A few things jump out here. The first, of course, are the “Western Forces,” which include exactly one Western state—California—along with Texas. In reality, few states are as fundamentally different as California and Texas, but therein lies Garland’s point: Civil War isn’t about our 2024 reality. It’s an alternate version inspired by ours that comments on the potential consequences of our actions. And, it doesn’t really take a side or explain anything. Are the Western Forces more politically aligned with California or Texas? We never find out, and that’s the point.
This map also doesn’t make it clear who are the good guys and bad guys in the movie. Which, again, is the point. Who are the Loyalist States loyal to? Why is the Northwest a “New People?” And the Florida Alliance… well, that one actually kind of makes sense.
Having seen Civil War I can reveal that not all of these questions are answered, but seeing this map and thinking about it will begin to prepare you for the unexpected nature of the film. Tickets are on sale now.
The details of American politics do not concern Alex Garland in Civil War.
Despite the controversy it’s already courted about its supposed prescience, the unsettling feature from the British filmmaker doesn’t predict a future based on the country’s current two-party system. Garland is far more interested in the United States’ self-regarding exceptionalism, its belief in its own safety from executive instability. He is fascinated by how factionalism instigates conflict and how no nation is immune to the results of its violence.
Civil War
The Bottom Line
A subversive and unsettling exercise.
Venue: SXSW Film Festival (Headliner) Release date: Friday, April 12 Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman Director-screenwriter: Alex Garland
1 hour 49 minutes
Premiering at SXSW, Civil War explores these preoccupations from the perspective of a group of journalists as they chronicle life in their war-torn country while traveling to Washington, D.C. We meet the crew in New York, where they are covering a tense confrontation between civilians and police. Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) — a conflict photographer whose success and abrasiveness are modeled on that of celebrated World War II correspondent Lee Miller — works quickly with her Reuters colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) to capture the scene before the percolating violence bubbles over.
When it eventually does, the pair crosses paths with Jessie (Priscilla‘s Cailee Spaeny), a freelance photographer who gets hurt in the police-instigated melee. The young documentarian is eager to express admiration for Lee after the veteran correspondent saves her life and gifts her a neon press vest. Later that evening, Jessie, through a winning combination of will and charm, convinces Joel to let her tag along on the road trip to D.C. This is already after they agreed to let Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a New York Times journalist, join them despite the risks.
The group hits the road the next morning despite Lee’s protestations over Jessie’s inclusion. (She, fairly, doesn’t want to be responsible for a stranger and an amateur.) Their roughly 800-mile journey to D.C., where Joel and Lee have been promised an interview with the president (Nick Offerman), takes the journalists through hostile tracts, military checkpoints and makeshift refugee camps.
These scenes of America as an active war zone are some of Civil War’s most potent images. In a subversive move, Garland, partnering again with DP Rob Hardy, documents these conditions with the distant vérité style found in American films about international regional conflicts. The Ex Machina and Annihilation filmmaker juxtaposes images of displaced Americans, armed resistance fighters and other evidence of war with familiar shots of the nation’s pastoral landscape to create a sense of destabilization.
As the crew drives south of New York, they come across abandoned and blown-up cars on interstates lined with vibrant, verdant trees. A football stadium is now an aid camp, which adds a melancholic layer to the graffitied messages (“Go Steelers,” one says) that remind of life before. A winter wonderland dotted with statues of Santa Claus, for example, becomes an active conflict zone, and a small town that feels eerily distant from the destruction happening everywhere else turns out to be manned by an armed militia.
These sequences coupled with other nostalgia-loaded gestures — the use of country music needle drops, for example — effectively recast American iconography, implicitly questioning a nation’s tendency toward self-mythologizing. Garland also weaves in the snapshots captured by Lee and Jessie along the road, a technique that not only examines the ethics of war photography but also American expectations of what these images must be. As for the subject of race — the organizing principle of the nation — Civil War gestures but does not explicitly confront.
All of these thoughts, considerations and questions — what does it mean to be American is one the film repeatedly asks — are experienced by the viewer on a largely intellectual level. Garland has always been a director of big ideas, and Civil War is no exception when it comes to that ambitiousness. But he’s also reaching for an intimacy here that his screenplay doesn’t quite deliver on. Despite strong turns from the cast, the American journalists at the center of the story feel emotionally sterile vis a vis the dissolution of their country, and their motivations for doing the work register as similarly remote. Of course war hardens, contorts and traumatizes, but Civil War presupposes that the press, in this distant future, can always see the forest for the trees. The film is wise to avoid big, melodramatic gestures, but characters sharing stories might have conjured a better sense of their depth.
Dunst makes Lee an incredibly compelling figure whose faith and ability to stomach the demands of the job unravel slowly over the course of the film. But a lack of detail keeps her character in the shadows. The same goes for Jessie, whose youth offers insights into her risky behavior, and Joel, who is Latino and from Florida (a state that here has its own faction separate from the alliance between Texas and California).
With the precision and length of its violent battle sequences, it’s clear Civil War operates as a clarion call. Garland wrote the film in 2020 as he watched cogs on America’s self-mythologizing exceptionalist machine turn, propelling the nation into a nightmare. With this latest film, he sounds the alarm, wondering less about how a country walks blindly into its own destruction and more about what happens when it does.
