Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ is probably not the movie you think it is. And that’s good.

“Civil War” is not the movie I thought it was going to be. And that’s a good thing. 

I said as much to writer-director Alex Garland following the world premiere of his new film that blends thrilling oversized set pieces with the unseen internal workings of an intimate personal drama. 

If you have seen the trailer for the film, which will be released April 12, you know that the fictionalized America of the movie is in the middle of a bloody civil war. We learn in an early exposition scene that an untrustworthy president of the United States (Nick Offerman) has stayed in office for a third term and has murdered American citizens. Beyond the broad strokes of fascism, we don’t learn much else about the nature of the conflict. What more is there to know for anyone who is anti-fascism?

Garland said before the second of Thursday night’s two screenings that he never knows quite how to introduce a film. 

“I particularly don’t know how to introduce this one,” the English filmmaker said. “I think in some ways it’s quite good to watch films knowing as little as possible, maybe nothing. So, I’ll help you know nothing about this film.”

I am inclined to follow the director’s lead on this one while circling back to my original premise. The trailer for “Civil War” might lead you to believe the film from the “28 Days Later” screenwriter would be an unnecessarily provocative movie that heightens anxiety and polarization in our fractured country. But that’s not what happens. 

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“You thought it would be more cynical, maybe?” Garland asked me when we discussed the film after the screening. 

I did. And it’s not. The story, which picks up the final act of a bloody civil war, is told through the objective lens, quite literally, of veteran war correspondent Lee Miller (named after the famed photojournalist and played by a steely Kirsten Dunst), who is making her way to D.C. for the war’s climax or denouement. 

The unexplained violence, the utter destruction, the loss of empathy and the fear don’t enrage or titillate, they leave you wondering, “What the f*** are we doing here?”

“I think that could practically be the caption that just sits under the film,” Garland responded him when I told him my reaction. “That was essentially what I was doing. That’s exactly it.”

As he explained to the crowd after the screening, the theme for the movie came to him in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, after he had time to get some separation and take stock of a problematic world and how far we have drifted into our calcified silos. 

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The movie isn’t intended to be an indictment on the public on either side of the political spectrum (unless you are cool with fascism). There is more empathy than judgment. Mostly it is a mirror or a container. The exposition is light because Garland knows the story is already all encompassing, and he hopes that the film can bring people of various points of view to common ground.

“The film is intended to be a conversation, so it doesn’t assert too much because it wants to leave space for people,” Garland said. “But I also believe everyone believes internally why … we don’t need it explained. We know exactly why it might happen. We know exactly what the fault lines and the pressures are.”

Back to that trailer. One big takeaway you hear, both seriously and in jest is that it’s impossible to believe California and Texas, which form the film’s fictional Western Forces, would ever band together. While “Civil War” doesn’t get into the alliance’s origin story, Garland scoffs at the notion shared ground could not be found among the states. 

“I don’t see why Texas and California might not agree if there was a fascist President who was smashing the Constitution and killing America's own citizens,” Garland told me. “What are we supposed to say, that the polarized stuff would be more important than that. It’s ludicrous.”