CIVIL WAR

One might expect a film about a US civil war set in the near future to be saying something about the state of America now.

But since the civil war involves a Democrat state (California) and a Republican state (Texas) combining, it's clear that this film is not doing that - at least not directly.

I'm inclined to think that setting the film in the US is more of a marketing gimmick, although no doubt it is also intended to serve as something of a warning about where the polarisation of American society might be leading.  

But the main focus of the film is journalism, since the four main characters are members of that profession. 

Well, really two main characters: Lee, a veteran photojournalist (Kirsten Dunst) and Jessie, a young woman (Cailee Spaeny) who wants to follow in her footsteps.  

I found the character of Jessie unconvincing and often annoying, although this may say more about me than it does about the performance.  I think it is fair to say that the screenplay doesn't do a great job of fleshing out her character.

It also doesn't help that although the character is meant to be in her early 20s she comes across as more of a teenager.  This contributed to me finding her involvement in the final action sequences rather absurd.

Dunst does a very good job of portraying Lee as someone who is haunted by the horrific images she has captured over the years and who is now struggling to maintain the necessary level of emotional detachment.  Even so I didn't find the way her character behaves in those final scenes to be very believable.

And I didn't think that the climactic moment of Lee and Jessie's relationship was well staged, so that it didn't have the emotional impact that the writer and director Alex Garland presumably intended.

This speaks to the fact that their relationship never came alive to me.  It's partly that of mentor and mentee, but there also might be a mother-daughter aspect being hinted at but not developed.  In a weird way, especially in relation to the final moments of the film, it reminded me of the relationship between Margo and Eve in the classic 'All About Eve'.

Compared with Garland's earlier 'Ex Machina' this film didn't seem to have much in the way of ideas, other than that civil war is bad, and that those people who document conflict are likely to become emotionally damaged. 

On top of this and the lack of engaging characters, the plot narrative is quite basic.

So the fact that despite these shortcomings I did still enjoy the film comes down to the quality of the performances, and to the visual power of certain scenes and images. 

RATING: ✓ If You've Nothing Better To Do