How to watch Alex Garland's "Civil War"

This acclaimed film about a war-torn America seems to have a fatal plot hole

Civil War comes across as an election-year opus that could save America.

The movie premiered at SXSW on March 14th. Kirsten Dunst stars as a photojournalist working her way across a near-future America torn apart by civil war, led by a third-term president played by Nick Offerman. Reviews of this dystopian film were unfailingly positive: “a provocative, thrilling monster of a movie” (AV Club), “intelligent precision filmmaking” (Slant Magazine), and even “the movie event of the year — and the post-movie group discussion of your lifetime” (The Playlist).

Civil War opens in wide release on April 12th, in the middle of an anticlimactic presidential primary. These days many Americans and millions of people around the world are worried that democracy’s future is bleak. This film seems to say out loud the part many Americans have feared for a while: that our political differences will devolve into mass bloodshed and destruction, leaving our country in ashes.

In the movie, 19 states have seceded. Florida leads one faction; Texas and California have formed a “Western Alliance”. The United States government is fighting back, using the military to strike on American soil. Our main characters are journalists documenting the secessionists as they plan to storm Washington on July 4th.

I’m writing this before the movie’s release, but I do plan to see it. I hope it can advance our debates about America’s future, giving us another tool to have a shared conversation. But from what I’ve seen so far, I’m surprised the reviews were so good.

PLEASE PAUSE HERE. Take 2 minutes to watch the trailer before reading further.

I understand that some movies need a MacGuffin: a plot device that drives the story forward. The letters of transit in Casablanca, the suitcase in Pulp Fiction, “Rosebud” in Citizen Kane. A MacGuffin can reveal character, it can make the story make sense, it can remain totally unexplained, or it can even be a minor piece of structure. The point is, it gives the narrative a reason for being.

Sci-fi uses this technique all the time, but one key rule makes it work: the world of the movie has to make logical sense. Acknowledge the scientific laws, then break them. Einstein said nothing can travel faster than light, but Star Trek gets away with warp speed by generating a field of “subspace” around starships. You start with the science, then layer on the fiction. Civil War seems to indulge in political fiction at the expense of political science. How much disbelief do we have to suspend, and is it worth the work?

Based on what I’ve seen & heard so far, the MacGuffin of Civil War is America itself.

I mentioned that the president in this film is on his third term. That would violate part of the 22nd Amendment:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

That means, for Nick Offerman’s character to make logical sense, he would’ve more or less had to:

• openly violate the Constitution,

• win re-election from Americans who want the Constitution violated (or who have amended that Amendment),

• get a congressional supermajority to approve a constitutional exemption (or a new Amendment),

• survive or circumvent a US Supreme Court challenge,

• get enough military service members to defend him by openly committing treason and violating their oaths, and (here’s the big one)

• survive it all without someone putting a bullet between his eyes.

That list got dark at the end, right? But that’s the point. That has actually happened before, so it’s too plausible to ignore. Which seems more likely: millions of Americans letting an internal war kill their neighbors (which has happened once), or an assassin killing the president (which has happened four times)?

Civil War seems like it requires its audience not to ask too many questions about an actual democracy that actually exists and has an actual history — to just go with it — and to let the United States itself be the MacGuffin that makes this all work. I’m not sure a plot device that big should go unexplained.

With all that said, there is a glimmer of hope in the trailer. One journalist asks a shopkeeper if she’s aware of the war. The shopkeeper is leaning over her counter, nonchalantly reading a book as she tends her clothing store.

“We just try to stay out,” she says. “With what we see on the news, seems like it’s for the best.”

Exactly. Her character makes me think this movie might work. She represents what I think most Americans would actually do if a civil war tried to break out.

America’s economy relies on stability. It’s why other countries love to do business with us. Our descent into insanity would break the world’s faith in our stability, sending everything into a tailspin. I don’t believe Americans would stand for that very long. (A certain presidential candidate, who seems to value wealth & status above all, might not have thought that through.)

Think grocery and gas prices are a constant struggle now? Wait until milk and gas both cost $20/gallon, and you have to drive 15 miles to get a half-gallon or a quarter-tank. In our nation of SUVs, minivans, pickups and other gas guzzlers that’s gonna be a nightmare.

And, no, driving a Tesla won’t save you. The electrical infrastructure that recharges them can be commandeered in a time of crisis, and that power supply can be diverted. Nice try.

We get cranky when Netflix goes down. Wait until broadband is rationed to prioritize soldiers and first responders.

You can also kiss every sporting event, concert, live show and outdoor festival good-bye overnight. Stadiums and arenas are mass casualty events waiting to happen.

Forget that vacation you’ve spent five years saving for. Forget that emergency trip to see your loved one in the hospital, or your first grandchild being born. Impossible.

Forget Happy Hour: a room full of drunk Americans, armed and ornery? Get used to drinking at home in your underwear.

Even sex will be largely out of the question. Who’d want to have a kid during a war, not to mention the expense of diapers (expensive and rationed), formula (expensive and rationed) and pediatric care (exorbitant and rare)? Condoms are made of petroleum products, and many lubricants use petroleum. We’ll need that to grease the gears of war, not those other moving parts.

Millions of Americans are struggling today, but we have an immense array of creature comforts to ease the sting. We are very comfortable with being very comfortable. Do you really think we’ll just cooperate with roughing it? Churn our own butter, grow our own broccoli and hunt jackrabbits by the creek out back? Who do you know that would volunteer for that?

No, really. Think hard. Make a mental list of everyone you can think of, by name, who would willingly adapt to all these changes for the sake of letting this carnage run its course.

Many people are justifiably worried about the possibility of another January 6th. I am too. We should also remember what happened on January 7th: nothing. It was a burst of murderous rage that ended in less than 24 hours and has yet to recur. That’s obviously no excuse. Nor is it very comforting; political violence can happen again. Nor is it a reason to ignore the very real threat of more political violence, maybe worse than January 6th was.

It is, however, valuable context. Most Americans would just as soon not be bothered, and perhaps that internalized entitlement (or apathy) is America's first line of defense against tyranny. We’d be terrible recruits.

If Civil War’s writer/director Alex Garland is serious about preventing the nightmare his movie depicts, he needs to clarify how it happens and why we’d go along with it. Even the glowing reviews acknowledge that the film leaves out a lot of backstory. Garland, who is British, addressed this in a talk at SXSW the day after the premiere.

“Questions are raised, answers are there, but you have to step to it and not expect to be spoon fed these things,” Garland said. “I understand not all films do that, and a lot of people do want to be spoon-fed. …I think the material, personally, is there. It’s there by inference and implication.”

He might be right. Perhaps after I see the film, all these gaps will be filled in for me. I hope the movie is fantastic. Garland’s inclination to tackle this scary topic is commendable, and his inference could work. But a story about the United States destroying itself from within needs to ring true for Americans. Let’s ask the right questions about civil war, and about Civil War. Because those who feel their fight is inevitable have yet to solidly answer this, above all:

You, and what army?