Civil War film, tough, but among the 2024 best films

“Civil War”, directed by Alex Garland, continues impressing moviegoers and critics nowadays, who in the middle of the year have already ranked it as one of the best films of 2024.

Shot in a hypothetical near future, the film follows the cameras of a team of war correspondents who try to capture the rawness of a war between the Western California and Texas forces against the U.S. federal government.

In their roles as photographers, American actresses Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny, along with Brazilian Wagner Moura as a journalist, portray the road to Washington, where the story must conclude in the overthrow of the executive in power and the expected execution of the nation’s president, played by Nick Offerman (The Last of Us).

Atypical, this road movie narrates the cruelty of war through dangerous scenes, while showing another possible face of a country that is still trying to free itself from the traces of the Jan 6´s Capitol assault.

But beware, “Civil War”, released by A24 production company, is not only striking for the harshness of the stills taken by the cameras, often in black and white to instill greater drama, but also for changes that occur in reporters´ lives in search of success at any cost.

With excellent sound design and stunning photography, “Civil War” can be translated as a reflection on politics, society and future, “a wake-up call,” according to Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter.

In her opinion, this dystopian action 109-minute film explores the risks the United States could face if it continues on its self-destruction pathway.

For The New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, the film, premiered in the United States and the U.K. in April, is not likely to fulfill Hollywood’s deep-rooted and deeply American imperative for happy endings.

The very premise of Garland’s (Ex-Machine, Extermination) film means that … a happy ending is impossible, which makes it very hard to watch, he added.

I have rarely seen a film that has made me so uncomfortable or seen an actor’s face that, like Dunst’s, expresses the hopelessness of a nation so vividly that it feels like an X-ray, the journalist wrote.