Civil War: Alex Garland is a writer, screenwriter, director of some very interesting, cutting edge recent sci fi and technology related films. The titles include Ex Machina (2014) and Annihilation (2018), both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. His one Oscar nomination came from his writing in Ex Machina. He wrote the novel The Beach which became the the Leo DiCaprio film. His latest release is an apocalyptic take on the political situation in the United States. The Americans as we all know, have already fought a Civil War back in the 1860s (1861-1865). This movie addresses what the next civil war could look like.
The movie takes a few perspectives, but mainly focuses on the efforts of Kirsten Dunst as a veteran war correspondent photographer and her team. As part of the team, she has added, to her distaste, a young photographer who regards Dunst as her personal hero. The story is a road trip movie with the team looking to get to Washington DC. Seems the rebel countries from Florida and Texas are looking to overtake the President and his command by force. The movie opens with the President announcing publicly that there have been mistakes made by the rebel forces.
Ultimately there are number of situations which reflect this new reality, including an area where they are ignoring the war surrounding them and acting like it is back to the 1950s Leave It To Beaver. In another area, they run across Jesse Plemons as a military officer leading some rebels in a fashion that channels Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now, as a leader who seems to relish the battle and the blood, and seems to exact his own form of justice in a lawless society. It is a sad commentary on the current situation that we can see a world where this could happen. There are images of battles taking place in Washington DC, for example an active shooting on the Lincoln Memorial, in which the irony isn’t lost on the viewer. Maybe that was one of my problems with this movie and how it didn’t really impact me. I think the idea was “let’s explore various situations in a modern civil war” all with a The Killing Fields or A Private War (type of vehicle to get us there; the war correspondent documenting the conflict). The team gets directly impacted by the conflict in ways that are predictable. It is all so very depressing that one can hope that the people come to their senses. However, as a movie it isn’t as good as the message that Garland hopes to resonate with his audience.
Challengers: Zendaya seems to be everywhere these days. From Dune and Euphoria she has taken on this almost mythical power with young women, and this movie comes at a time where I have heard from a number of people that daughters are seeing this movie multiple times in the theatre. As a result, I was interested to see what all the fuss could be about. Zendaya incidentally is also the producer for this movie. The principal actors are her, Josh O’Connor (best known to me as the teenage Prince Charles in The Crown, and Mike Faist who I don’t ever recall seeing before. The three make up competitive tennis players working their way through the ranks. The story jumps around in a timeline from early days as teens, through more formative years of playing and then to the present day where the two men are playing each other in a secondary level game outside New York City, nearing the end of their careers.
Tennis is the method by which to show how the relationships came about, but this is a movie, in some ways not so dissimilar to the 2003 film The Dreamers starring Eva Green with two male suitors. Similar in that they seek to explore themselves and each other. They are just understanding their own bodies and the connections with others. None of the tennis scenes made me believe that the actors were playing tennis at a high level. It was obvious that the ball returns with the players were not real but CGI. It didn’t matter, but it was noted.
In this instance, the two male players have played for years in tournaments and grew close. They meet Zendaya who was already a highly ranked teenager. They both take a liking to her, and she decides to take matters into her own hands, deciding which of these young men that she wishes to entertain. In truth, she decides to entertain herself really. Fate steps in, and guides some future moves for Zendaya’s character. In the current date, we see her already with Faist’s character and watching this match against the former friend. The rest is a playback as to why this individual tennis match holds more meaning than just a $7,200 prize for the winner.
In any film, or in any relationship I think you know that there is troubled waters ahead when one person says: “I love you” and the other person responds: “I know”. Same holds true in this movie. I have a hard time understanding the motivations of the Zendaya character. She has set the stage for what was to take place – in a planned fashion, although I am certain that it didn’t entirely transpire as expected at least in the middle stage. Ultimately much is made over the one game played as Zendaya watches over the proceedings. I will admit that I don’t see what all the fuss is about. I certainly would not see the reason to watch this on mutliple viewings, but then again I am absolutely not the target audience.
Mondays With Robbie 