Civil War director Alex Garland responds to movie criticism: ‘They’re just missing the point’

Civil War director Alex Garland responds to movie criticism: ‘They’re just missing the point’

‘Civil War’ director Alex Garland thinks the movie’s critics are “missing the point”.

The 53-year-old filmmaker’s dystopian flick follows journalists – played by Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura and Cailee Spaeny – travelling across the United States as a Second Civil War rages in the country, which is being ruled over by a totalitarian president (Nick Offerman), and it has faced a backlash for being apolitial, but Alex just felt he didn’t need to overtly “state” the ideals of the film within the plot.

Speaking to Inverse, he said: “People keep saying the film is not political. I think they’re just missing the point.

“It’s just not stating politics in the way they want it to be stated. I thought, it’s actually not necessary because audiences ideally would make their own interpretation, ‘What threatens us? What is there around right now that might lead us to this place?’ And I leave that to them.”

Garland wanted his work to reflect the unbiased observations journalists have to make in their day-to-day lives, which he argued was the most politically-charged theme in the movie.

He said: “I just wanted to make old-fashioned news reporters into heroes. Even that is its own low-level political statement.

“[It] is an attitude that belongs to the bias we now expect from news services. On some level, I just wanted to make journalists heroes because I felt that the demonization of journalists was idiotic.”

Agreeing with her director, Kirsten previouly insisted the film’s messaging was completely “open to interpretation”.

During an interview with Variety magazine, she said: “This movie, after you see it, you want to talk about it for a while with people. And I think any movie that does that is incredible.

“The whole movie is open to interpretation. For me, there were things I just accepted that were unexplained. It allows the audience to fill in their own feelings about what they’re watching.”