Controversial 'Civil War' expresses Alex Garland's weariness more than anything

Writer-director Alex Garland’s “Civil War” opened wide last week to controversy and boffo box office numbers. That makes the film, in and of itself, out of sync with the conventional wisdom of Hollywood.

Movies about unpleasant subjects are fine for the arthouse crowd but toxic for the multiplexes, the usual thinking goes. With the numbers the film brought in, there is hope adults looking for some edge will get their butts into movie theater seats.

The controversy is all over the map. The film — about the near-future of the U.S., in which states have broken away from the federalist model and war with the entrenched government — has been criticized for not being political enough. As though Garland needed to telegraph to audiences their pre-conceived notions of who is causing strife in our current political culture through the plot. That is not the film he is trying to make.

What he’s trying to do is parachute the audience into an existing world to show what it would look like, not how we got there. Reasonable arguments can be made as to whether that’s what he should have done. For me, it works. Why do I need my worldview pampered so thoroughly?

Yet others point to the depiction of the unnamed president (Nick Offerman) as a tyrant who has disbanded the FBI, executed journalists, and bestowed upon himself a third term in office, as an MSNBC-infused version of Donald Trump.

The audience is asked to cheer for his dispatchment by the Western Forces comprised of California and Texas. (Quite a combo there.) Their argument: “Civil War” is too political!

Others point to the focus of the film: a band of journalists — led by Kirsten Dunst and Missouri’s own Cailee Spaeny — as they venture through the wasteland of the eastern seaboard between New York and Washington D.C. for the inevitable coup d’état. It’s a celebration of journalists, some maintain. The objective truthtellers of a world gone mad, who must struggle with their own humanity as they witness things they have only seen in far-flung parts of the world.

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Yet others point out the journalists are not portrayed gallantly. They're cynical and detached. Another member of the group, played by Wagner Moura, is reckless with questionable motives. Perhaps even predatory, based on one line of dialogue.

Complicated characters. Something we should not criticize. But let’s not pretend the film is an untarnished celebration of the Fourth Estate. 

Many have called into question Garland’s own politics, which he is quite reserved in discussing. His lack of public statements makes it easy for liberal critics to dismiss him as reactionary, particularly when he credits right-wing provocateur Andy Ngo with archival footage featured in the film. Or the fact he thanks journalist Helen Lewis in the credits; she has endorsed a number of anti-trans positions in her writing.

Conservatives assume he’s just another pinko leftie from Hollyweird without any justification.

I don’t know. I’ve watched pretty much all of Garland’s work. He has directed some of the best sci-fi films of the past 10 years: “Ex Machina,” “Annihilation,” and “Men," not to mention the FX limited series “Devs.” He’s also written “28 Days Later,” one of the best horror films of this century. None of these pieces are remotely political and certainly not the work of someone who would endorse regressive populism.

What I think is going on with “Civil War” — and a point I’ve not seen addressed anywhere else — is a bit of reflective autobiography. In interviews, Garland has expressed wariness about his role as a director, noting he will “step back” from helming films and focus on writing. How the media and critics have construed his work over the past decade has taken a toll.

Whenever I see a film focus on photographers, like the characters portrayed by Dunst and Spaeny, my mind immediately questions whether the director is making a self-portrait. Similar to the director, the photographer is responding to what they see around them. Hoping to present a vision of the world to an audience for some specific purpose, they soon realize bearing witness to all things is too much to handle.

Or they find the need to be objective fails them as their own feelings begin to well up.

After reading Garland’s interviews, and now seeing the film, I cannot escape the conclusion that he has made “Civil War” as an announcement of his exhaustion with art. That after years of making stories about AI, sexism, and genetics as a warning to our culture of the near future and the perils it might bring, he’s simply put too much into this work.

Given Garland’s intellectual streak in his films — they are rife with references to literature, poetry and many denser forms of entertainment — it would make sense for him to pontificate about his existential dilemma. I certainly feel for him, as it is clear from watching this film he’s sick of everything.

But is this entertaining? There are certainly engaging elements of “Civil War.” The depictions of what our country will look like in this scenario offers much to chew on and Garland does this in an efficient, vibrant way. But making such a statement about artistic distress is pretentious.

Garland’s crisis as a director — seen through the lens (pun intended) of war photographers — offers a false equivalency. Is the work of a war photographer really the same thing as helming a film with a $50 million budget? Perhaps a reality check is needed.

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I don’t mean to be reductive about “Civil War,” but my approach requires me to dig into the motivations and intentions of the filmmaker. I think he has a message and that message is “I am tired of suffering for my art.”

I hope Garland takes a break and gets back to the great work he has done. His vision of the future is urgent and critical. We need more artists like him.

If you want to check out the fuss, “Civil War” starts at Ragtag Cinema this weekend. But I would urge seeing it in a theater with a really good sound system. The layered complexity of each scene demands it. I saw it at the Regal, and it was one of the rare times where I felt that theater’s acoustics lent something to the experience.

James Owen is the Tribune’s film columnist. In real life, he is a lawyer and executive director of energy policy group Renew Missouri. A graduate of Drury University and the University of Kansas, he created Filmsnobs.com, where he co-hosts a podcast. He enjoyed an extended stint as an on-air film critic for KY3, the NBC affiliate in Springfield, and now regularly guests on Columbia radio station KFRU.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Controversial 'Civil War' expresses weariness more than anything