AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

CIVIL WAR Alex Garland looks into a nearfuture where the States are far from united…

God bless America. This sentiment, repeated so liberally it is often rote, elicits genuine chills when it closes the trailer to the new film by Alex Garland (Ex-Machina, Annihilation). Uttered by Nick Offerman’s tyrannical President, it comes after a series of truly disturbing images – tanks, air strikes, automatic weapons in the streets – that show an America torn apart by civil war.

The near-future setting and Garland’s celebrated history in the genre suggest that Civil War might be a work of science-fiction – but the British writer/director isn’t so sure. Working with a $75m budget that’s nose-bleed territory for both himself and production company A24, he’s gone for a level of realism in his new film, and it really doesn’t take much of a leap to envision today’s divided America finding itself in such a terrifying place.

‘There’s a certain kind of action film that plays to contemporary concerns, you know?’ muses Garland. ‘This movie would fit into that bracket. I think if I watched this film, I wouldn’t call it science-fiction. It’s definitely a genre movie. It’s an action movie. In a way, it’s like a certain kind of 70s thriller, maybe, that would speculate something happening in a nuclear power station, or with some sinister cabal – you know, The Parallax View.’

The trailer doesn’t explain how America tipped off the cliff – and nor does Garland as he chats to Total Film in an LA hotel. What we do know is that 19 states have seceded, and the Western Forces, boasting an alliance between California and Texas, are fighting back against POTUS and the US military. The story follows journalists Lee (Kirsten Dunst), Joel (Wagner Moura) and Jessie (Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny) as they track the rebels’ push through a war-torn country (‘What kind of an American are you?’ ask Jesse Plemons’ soldier in one horrifying scene) in an effort to reach Washington DC.

But wait. Rewind. California and Texas? How could these two states with their polar-opposite political beliefs ever unite? Garland grimaces. ‘I would say that I was not interested, and am not interested, in an aspect of that kind of party politics,’ he says. ‘The way I work in film is usually by posing a question. I’m doing it for a specific reason. And I think in that instance…’ He pauses. ‘I’m not going to answer that question, but I’ll just restate the question that you put: if you are unable to imagine why Texas and California could join forces against a president who is acting in a fascistic way, who is bombing his own citizens, and has stayed in for three terms, then that is its own answer to the question.’

God bless America, indeed.

CIVIL WAR OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 12 APRIL.

‘The way I work in film is usually by posing a question. I’m doing it for a specific reason’

ALEX GARLAND