VIEWERS’ GUIDE: How to watch Civil War

Subtitle: Warm up your screaming muscles

National treasure Jesse Plemons, menacing as ever. (Source: YouTube.)

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Why did I watch this movie?

Yes, okay, fine, I watched it because I had to, so I could be on the Pop Culture Happy Hour episode discussing it. But I’ve been asking myself over and over since seeing Civil War:

Why did I watch this movie?

OK, saying “I had to” watch this movie isn’t quite right. I suppose I should cop to pretty much BEGGING to be on PCHH’s “Civil War” episode. When the trailer dropped a few months ago, I was amped. 

Because look at this scoldy trash! The villainous president! The young pretty lady getting lectured about her complacency! The scary militant asking what kind of American you are! This movie looked about as insightful as a wet tampon.¹

“ZzzzzEEEEEIIIITTTGEIIIIIISSSSST!” I howled at the sky, pounding my caps-lock key and writing to the podcast editor that YES YOU NEED ME ON THIS EPISODE. I was ready to eviscerate.

Anyway. 

I do not have an eviscerating take. I found the movie well-shot, tense, well-acted, deeply upsetting…

…and also maybe pointless.

Like I said: Why did I watch this movie?

And given those difficult feelings, I figured I would give the world a viewing guide. Enjoy.

1. Ignore the trailer.

I mean, okay, give the trailer a watch if you must. And then forget it.

Based on the anti-subtle-ness on display in it, I had been expecting Don’t Look Up – the movie equivalent of that one friend you have who’s really fired up about ONE particular topic and only one, and you like them well enough so you go get a beer with them and soon ah shit you’re on this topic again and yes, you agree, George Lucas really fucked up Star Wars in his later years, don’t we all agree about that? But no, this friend thinks he really really did, and you go okay, and so you sip your IPA and listen and Star Wars friend has a 10-minute diatribe about Qui-Gon Jinn’s hairdo and again, you don’t disagree, but do you need to be yelled at for 2 hours about it, and soon you have your head on the bar and are whimpering “Yes, yes, i’ll agree to anything, Daisy Ridley isn’t a believable Jedi okay fine I don’t even care anymore.”²³

I have good news. Civil War is not Don’t Look Up.

Don’t Look Up is, hands-down, one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.⁴

And I found Civil War to be the opposite of Don’t Look Up in many ways. Don’t Look Up ties you up and gives you painful wet willies while screaming about climate change for two hours — an unpleasant experience, even if you fear climate change.

Civil War, meanwhile, plunks you down in the middle of a war and takes a few steps back. After a beat, it sweeps an arm out across the war-torn American landscape.

“Ehhhhhhhh? What do you think?” says the movie. “Bad, huh? Ehhhhhh?”

So Civil War is the opposite of one particular terrible movie. But that doesn’t make Civil War a great movie.

The plot, by the way, is this: four journalists are trying to drive from New York City to Washington, DC, so that a couple of them can interview the president before the capital falls to militants from secessionist states. It’s a road trip movie, with journalists as the (I think?) heroes. 

By the way, who are the various factions here? What’s motivating everyone? The movie isn’t clear.

It is beautifully acted (Kirsten Dunst in particular is entirely believable as a hardened, near-broken photojournalist). It’s chilling. Looking at America as a war-torn nation, with people displaced from their homes into tent encampments, is upsetting. There’s a mass grave. There are graphic shots of torture victims. It’s harrowing image after harrowing image.

But also, no, but seriously. Who believes what in this conflict? What do they want? Unclear.

My general mood as I left the theater was roughly: “OK, I am not sure what that said. But it was affecting. It was upsetting. I felt things. Know what? I’ll stew on it. The point will come to me. 3 and a half stars out of 5.”

“Ehhhhh?” said the movie, watching me leave. “Ehhhhh? Warrrrr?”

“Yep. Got it,” I said.

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2. Bring earplugs. Also Xanax maybe?

There are so many gunshots in this movie. And they are not only unusually loud but also somehow always unexpected. My watch tells me I burned 200 calories from jump scares alone.

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3. Yes, definitely Xanax.

Civil War pointedly does not take place in our world – Ron Swanson is president here, after all.

But then again, there are enough real-world referents – the fact that the conflict is to some degree about race (and that Charlottesville is repeatedly referenced as the conflict’s frontline), there’s an authoritarian president, there’s talk of something called the “antifa massacre,” a few militants wear Hawaiian shirts – that the movie invites you to draw connections to the real world.

(“Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?” says the movie. “Antifa? Ehhhhh?”)

I personally grew tense seeing the journalists roll through the country in a beat-up SUV, the word “PRESS” stenciled all over it. 

And while I recognize that this is the norm in conflict zones the world over, I still wanted to rattle the arms of my seat and scream – are you trying to get yourselves killed? To a lot of Americans – in the real world and, I would guess, in the movie’s world – the press is (a huge) part of the problem. WHAT ARE YOU DOING. 

The connections between this fictional world and our real one make the movie feel unbearably tense and entirely believable. I found myself nodding, cold sweat prickling: Yep. It’s gonna look like that when it happens. It sure is. Yep. Oh God.

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4. Don’t think about it too much. Except you kind of have to. Except don’t. Except…ah fuck it.

Okay, so. Civil War has just enough real-world reference points to make you not only worry, but try to construct your own story of how this whole thing happened. You know that the president is in his third term. You know that the US Army is fighting secessionist forces. 

But also, the movie pointedly hides the ball from you. Here is a flash of a map of (maybe?) the secessionist states on a TV in the background. Didn’t see it? You weren’t meant to. Don’t worry about it. Why did these particular states secede? Don’t worry about it. A nation divided is upsetting, isn’t it?

Here is a gas station. These scary guys guarding it? What do they believe? Don’t worry about it. The looters they’ve tortured? Why did they need to loot? Don’t worry about it. Torturing people sure is upsetting, isn’t it?

Why is Jesse Plemons shooting people? Which side does he support? Shrug. All the fighters, on any side, are brutal anyway. That’s upsetting, isn’t it?

And then the journalists come upon two soldiers in a firefight at one point, and it comes to light that the soldiers don’t even know who they’re shooting at.

(“Ehhhhh? Isn’t that fucked up? Isn’t fighting pointless? EHHHHHH?”)

And in case you’re not getting it, war photographer Kirsten Dunst plunks the message at your feet: “Every time I survived a war zone, I thought I was sending a warning home: Don’t do this.”

So. We see the horrors of war. We hear that everyone should have tried to avoid it. And also we have no idea how that avoidance might have happened.

What I’m saying is that Civil War is not so much both-sidesy as it is no-sidesy. 

The thesis of this movie amounts to, roughly: [drag on cigarette] “Man, war is just, like, bad, and it could happen here!” [drag on cigarette] “RIGHT??? EHHHHHHH?????”

Sure. I agree. Eh, indeed.

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5. Maybe get someone to drive you home?

I got into the car after the movie and sat for a moment with my thousand-yard stare. That was rough.

(“EEEEEEEHHHHHHH?”)

And given that Civil War is about journalists…

[sigh]

Okay. Look. I will say that it gave me Journalist Feelings. And now you have to/get to hear them.

This movie, whether unintentionally or not, bolstered the nihilism that I sometimes feel when I’m out reporting. 

The characters in this movie are always chasing the next story, the perfect picture, the right quote. And by my count, we only hear one character talk about consuming news – a clothing store clerk clearly portrayed as a Bad, Vapid Person. 

“We just try to stay out. With what we see on the news, seems like it’s for the best,” she says.

We also hear about some of the main characters’ family members, out there in Middle America, who are minding their own business and pretending the war doesn’t exist.

In other words, there are a lot of people in Civil War’s world who ignore the news. In addition, these journalists we’re watching — we don’t know who’s reading their stories or seeing their photos. It appears the journalists don’t, either.

It makes for a movie suffuse with Big Questions: Why are you doing this? What impact does your work have? 

Show me a journalist who hasn’t wondered that. Sitting in any number of political rallies, interviewing my umpteenth voter, hearing said voter repeat their candidate’s talking points for the umpteenth time, I have asked myself this question.

Here’s the thing, though: I’m not sure the movie intentionally posed this question. Civil War puts the war right in your face, yes, but it simultaneously keeps you at arm’s length by refusing to say anything political, or even anything controversial. So any Big Questions that come up feel incidental.

What does this movie have to say about journalists, besides that they 1) exist, 2) care a lot, and 3) maybe are addicted to the thrill of the chase?

No, seriously. If you know, please tell me.

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6. Also find someone to yell at/to.

I keep wanting someone to talk to about this movie. I sought out my most cinephile coworker to see if he had seen it yet. I eagerly sat up awake, waiting to talk, the night my spouse saw it this week.

This urge to discuss tricked me into thinking Civil War is a better movie than it is. 

I found that I didn’t want to talk to people about how the movie got under my skin, how it made me feel or think; I wanted someone, anyone, to just tell me what they thought the point was. 

In a movie so skillfully shot, so beautifully acted, I figured there had to be something. Looking back a few days alter, I asked myself why I left the theater mostly liking it.

It was the tension, I decided — the growing horror I felt as the movie went on. But upon further reflection, I realized that the tension and horror I felt were not about what was happening in the movie, but about the movie itself. It was the growing tension and horror that, oh shit, this movie might not have anything satisfying to say.

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7. Maybe subtract a star.

Your mileage may vary. 

Where I’ve landed: 2.5 stars. 

Go see it, have your guts chilled, marinate in your fears about our country. Tell your nearest Oscar voter to give Best Actress to Kirsten this year, while you’re at it.

Then scream into a pillow and move on with your life.

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LINKS

The Comstock Act, explained. I wrote about the 19th-century law — still on the books — that could restrict the use of abortion pills, or even curtail abortion pretty much entirely.

Trump’s lack of clarity on abortion continues. Former President Trump early this week put out a video saying abortion policymaking should be left to the states. In that video, he did not even mention a national abortion ban — one of the main questions anyone had about his abortion stance. And while he had backed a federal ban as president, he later this week said he wouldn’t sign a federal ban. He also has not said anything about whether he’d enforce Comstock as president. (I asked the campaign. They wouldn’t say.) In short, abortion is going to be … a lot of this presidential campaign.

No Labels says “no candidate.” The well-funded potential third-party group couldn’t find a candidate. (Also, they hadn’t gotten onto the ballot in all 50 states yet.) So they backed out. Biden backers in particular rejoiced.

YOUR LATEST DOSE OF LONG-FORGOTTEN OLD-INTERNET JOY: Wizard People, Dear Readers — a wonderful, drawling, vulgar narration of the Harry Potter movies. Enjoy the Cribbage Match clip linked above.

1. I don’t know where this figure of speech came from but I like it. A lot.

2. OK, look. I have seen one Star Wars movie (A New Hope). I still stand by my potentially-Star-Wars-illiterate take.

3. And also, God, stop getting mad, I know that climate change matters more than Star Wars. Just let me make my damn analogy.

4. About as bad as Poor Things. Maybe worse. Honestly I’ve been waffling over which is more execrable and have not taken a firm position.