This review may contain spoilers.
So many of Garland’s best ideas are on display here, and so few of them come to fruition.
As an American who has run to a foreign conflict zone sporting a high viz ”press” vest and a camera, the concept of an adrenalin junkie photo journalist adventure set in a near-future American civil war is delicious. The decision to give the middle finger to anyone hoping for political vindication or commentary works a treat.
As soon as the logos begin, we get a very theatrical, very 21st century overture. Deafening static test tones blasting our ears in a sequenced circular pattern around the various surround sound speakers. As if to say, pay attention.
Open on Kirsten Dunst’s “Lee” and Wagner Moura’s “Joe” attending an intentionally vague riot where she sees a young journalist, Cailee Spaeny’s “Jessie,” get whopped across the face by a stray baton. As soon as Lee pulls Jessie from the crowd, Jessie recognizes Lee as one of her idols in the industry. Lee gives her a vest and recommends Kevlar. Then someone runs into the crowd with an American flag and a detonates a suicide bomb.
It’s an effective opening. And one of a handful of sequence that stands out as inspired. We then see the bar where war journalists hang out, featuring third world classics like deathly slow internet and power grids that go down on a nightly basis as distant explosions rumble. Lee and Joe have a drink with Sammy (played affectionately by Stephen McKinley), an old journalist who walks with a cane. They tell him (us) that the Western Forces of Texas and California are closing in on DC. The president is going down, and they intend to photograph and interview him before that happens. It’s the only scoop left to get in the war, and as such, has the most treacherous journey. A nearly 1,000 mile journey through war torn America. And to cap things off, Sammy and Jessie talk Joe into letting them tag along after Lee goes to her room.
Every single thing about this setup works. The movie doesn’t bother to explain how we got here. We all have our own ideas and insert them without even meaning to. And to people who question how the hell Texas and California join to form the Western Forces, I would say look outside of surface level culture politics. In most apocalyptic scenarios, cities are going to go first. Outside of LA and San Francisco, much of the land (resources) in California is owned and worked by farmers. It just makes sense.
Sidebar aside, our heroes get in the boat and begin making their way to Kurtz’s camp in Cambod-
Sorry, I lost my train of thought. The journey to DC has some astonishing vignettes. Taking a dangerous detour to get their rocks off photographing Florida Alliance soldiers in a firefight at a university campus, and Jesse Plemons as the mad-dog militia soldier come to mind. Both mesmerize, entertain, and leave you wanting more. Some vignettes fall flat. The sniper sequence has some funny lines, but does it really accomplish anything for the story other than putting a fresh coat of paint on the “Roach” sequence in Apocalypse Now? I would rather have had more Plemons, who is both steals the scene and has an impact on the story.
More effecting than these mini adventures are the scenes of sinew that hold them together. Journalists on the road drinking, smoking, debating, developing film, and ultimately living the day to day life of adrenalin junkie vagabonds has rarely been captured better. Jessie asks Lee if their journey leads to Jessie getting shot, would Lee photograph it? “What do you think.” It’s a sobering moment between a jaded professional and the ambitious photographer who idolizes her.
Where the film really falls flat is DC. The less effective vignettes could have been absolutely forgivable moments to breathe if Garland nailed the ending. He doesn’t. The straight shot into the capitol is rushed, sloppy, and unconvincing. To be clear, it’s not sloppy because it’s depicting a “one thing goes wrong after another” scenario. It’s sloppy storytelling. And it’s a boring action set piece. Blowing up a couple of walls and sending six WF soldiers in a straight line to find the president cowering under the Oval Office desk? Are we supposed to believe the White House doesn’t have safe rooms? They saw this attack coming for how long and didn’t develop a plan beyond sitting around? Was Nick Offerman having coffee and a cigar without any idea of the gunfire and explosions outside? This type of sequence shows the filmmaker’s priority. Thinking through the technical aspects of his own scenario, in this case a group of journalists tailing a militia army as they take the White House, is not one of them. Even down to the thousands of rounds of unspent ammunition falling to the floor (someone needs to sit down with every prop and set deck department in Hollywood to explain what those metal things that fly out of guns when you shoot them are). It’s just lazy.
Even if you think the military campaign should take a backseat to the perspective of our junkie heroes, their story rushes and slips into one of the least convincing “sacrificing yourself to push someone you thought you didn’t care about out of the way of gunfire” scenes I’ve ever seen. And then Garland’s priority becomes crystal clear. He wanted to photograph Jessie photographing Lee getting shot. It’s a great torch passing idea. But getting there? Dunst practically steps in front of a firing squad, shoves Jessie to the ground and strikes a pose as if to say, “get this, this is gonna be a great shot.” And it is. It just feels so staged and phony in a movie that, until this point, was so raw. All she had to do was a straight tackle to save them both. After seeing Joe and Lee move around gunfire with expert precision for the entire movie, I just didn’t buy it.
You may think I’m being over technical in my analysis. Maybe. But when your movie is as gritty and boots on the ground as this, and every technical aspect is spot on, then you abandon that realism to rush your bookended central metaphor so much, audience can’t take the idea seriously. It’s a problem plaguing many action movies made by people who don’t know the difference between live ammunition and a spent bullet casing.
To round out with positivity, the final interview with the president is a great end note. Wagner Moura as Joel might be my pick for best performance of the year so far. He is absolutely electric, poignant, morally anmbiguouse and hilarious. Kirstin Dunst is on point, as is her lighting. Rather than hiding her age, Dunst is consistently lit to accentuate it. This really reinforces the jaded professional war reporter aspect of her character. The movie looks and sounds incredible. Rob Hardy is at his career best with the camera. Playing with as many formats and styles as the photographers he is photographing. Everything up to DC ranges from serviceable to outstanding. But like every Garland directed film except Annihilation, the ending feels like he wrote it first and didn’t rewrite it when he worked his way back.
In an ocean of mediocre cinema this stands above the rest until it doesn’t, and that’s really too bad.
Comments