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Civil War is an arresting journalism film lacking a real thesis

A24’s Civil War doesn’t dig into the substance of its arresting imagery.

In A24’s new dystopian thriller Civil War, you can almost hear writer / director Alex Garland working through a mountain of complex ideas about how the United States could collapse and what it means for combat reporters to document humanity’s ugliest moments. But navigating America’s new reality is much more difficult for people like aspiring photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), an audience surrogate who seems dead set on making horror movie-level dumb decisions that push the film forward. As Civil War ’s journalists follow soldiers into battle with their cameras at the ready, the movie intensifies its action but also slows its visuals down to dramatically staged freeze-frames in order to show you the photos Lee and Jessie are capturing.

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