An Unsettling Close-Up: Civil War Movie Review

Alex Garland's 'Civil War' is less a warning than a call for reflection. It's about the way we've become desensitized to images of brutality. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated R (strong violent content, bloody/disturbing images and language throughout). In theaters.

I appreciated it as a story about journalists whose own country is cratering but who keep chasing the story and are determined to catch it even amidst chaos.

'Cathartic' was not the premiere word I expected to find dancing on my lips as I walked out of Alex Garland's Civil War. You might think a movie about a second American civil war would be a thinly veiled Trump story. It's not — and it's better for it.

When director Alex Garland sat down in 2020 to write his new movie, Civil War, he was clearly worried about the polarization of American society.

Lee Smith is a veteran war photographer who's something of a legend among her peers. But frankly, the atrocities she's photographed have left her questioning the value of her work.

Walking out of Civil War, I really wasn't sure where I stood on the film. I knew that it was deeply upsetting, by design, and that it was thought-provoking in its portrayal of a nation torn apart.