YMMV / Civil War (2024)

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Pretty much every faction involved in the war could be subject to this, given the sparse information regarding the origins of the conflict.
  • Though Joel is shown as an adrenaline junkie who lives for the dangers of his job, it could be argued that he is just putting on a façade and he's actually just as broken and shell-shocked as Lee. He has a notorious smoking habit, a history of heavy drinking and takes sleep medications- all of which suggests severe mental trauma which is likely a result of the stress of his work.
  • As detailed below in Fanon, the unnamed militiamen may not be an actual soldier or part of any faction, just a random sociopath who grabbed some military gear and uses the war as an excuse to kill others he doesn't like.
• Anvilicious: If you saw the movie and didn't get the idea that the Second American Civil War is a monumentally bad idea, you weren't paying attention.
• Canon Fodder: The political backdrop to the civil war is left almost entirely unexplained, leaving viewers free to speculate how things got to this point and what (if any) ideology the different factions are aligned with.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After what the racist militiamen did to Tony and Bohai, along with all the people they'd piled into a mass grave, it's incredibly satisfying when Sammy shows up Big Damn Heroes style and runs them over in the press van, saving Lee, Joel, and Jessie from certain death in the process.
  • Seeing the president beg for his life and then unceremoniously get executed is very satisfying, especially since he's a fascist tyrant and Dirty Coward who let his loyal men and First Lady become meat shields during the invasion. Seeing Joel, who has every reason to be mad with the president, let the WF soldiers kill him makes it even more satisfying.
• Complete Monster:
  • The President is a corrupt wannabe dictator who is the primary cause for the current war across America. A fascist who disbanded the FBI, rewrote the Constitution, and gave himself an extended third term in office, the President used devastating airstrikes and vicious protest dispersal tactics on civilians to secure his rule. Refusing to surrender his power and plunging the country into its current war-torn state by fighting the secessionist Western Forces, the President cowardly sacrifices his own men, staff, and possibly own wife as decoys when the WF lays siege to his base, and his order that all journalists be shot on sight leads to Lee being coldly gunned down by the President's Secret Service.
  • The unnamed soldier is the fanatically patriotic leader of a tiny militia who proves himself to be the worst the Civil War has to offer despite having no affiliation with either side of the conflict. Taking hostage those who pass by his base, the soldier kills people he deems non-American, dumping their bodies into a massive grave that houses the corpses of dozens, including children.
• Crosses the Line Twice: While the shopkeep in the Stepford Suburbia town's willful ignorance about the war and admittance that she prefers to stay out of everything is not funny at all and even a little horrifying, Joel's utterly flabbergasted reaction to it is. It's then coupled off with the woman casually telling the trio that they can try on whatever they'd like.
• Fanon:
  • It is a common theory that the well-equipped Western Forces are comprised of U.S. military defectors who claimed California and Texas due to being initially based there and forced the usual political rivals into an alliance. Because no political party is mentioned anywhere in the film and the W.F.'s sole given objective is the execution of the President (no mention of "restoring democracy", nor any progressive or conservative rationale), many viewers have further extrapolated that the War is not being fought along party or ideological lines. If both sides are equally fascistic and are merely seeking power and control for themselves, it would help to further explain the journalists' complete detachment from the war and its outcome.
  • The unnamed soldier played by Jesse Plemons is usually theorized as not being part of any of the military forces but rather just a random sociopath wearing a military uniform who's using the war as an excuse to kill people.
  • Among Lee/Jessie shippers, it's a very common headcanon that Lee was Jessie's Celebrity Crush while growing up.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Texas and California teaming up seems farfetched, but the Western Forces are heavily implied to be mostly military defectors; the largest military bases are stationed in California (where Marines west of the Mississippi train and the US Navy launches the bulk of its ships for Pacific Theater operations) and Texas (Fort Liberty/Bragg, home of US Army Command). If the conflict had less to do with political divisions than a loss of federal control over the states, as indicated by the breaking up of the U.S. into at least four different regional factions, it would make sense that military leaders disloyal to the President could consolidate control in the two states with the most bases and equipment.
  • Additionally, even if the war was political in nature, it's worth noting that state political alignment is not nearly as set in stone in the U.S. as many skeptics of the film's premise suggest. At the time of the film's release, California was only 14 years removed from having a Republican governor; the state has multiple sizable conservative enclaves that outnumber the total Republican voter population of almost every other state and have helped push many California laws far further right than most other "blue" states. On Texas' end, Austin and Houston are notably progressive/leftist pockets that required intense gerrymandering from conservatives to become 'red', and political scientists have suggested that migration patterns and party organizing may lead Texas to become a swing state in a decade's time; similarly sized Florida (mentioned to be at the head of its own faction in the war) went from voting for Democrat Barack Obama in 2012 to becoming one of the reddest states in the Union in an even shorter span. Considering the President in this film has been in office for at least eight years and made drastic changes to the U.S. political system, it is entirely possible for Texas and California to go from diametrically opposed in the early 2020s to allies in the 2030s—and that's assuming the film's version of the U.S. even shares our own's recent political history.
• Ho Yay: Jessie is a massive Hero-Worshipper towards Lee and openly finds her beautiful when she wears a dress and agrees to smile for a picture.
• Jerkass Woobie: As much as a devil-may-care adrenaline junkie that Joel may be, he goes through such a harrowing and traumatic Heroic BSoD, in which he watches four of his friends, including his mentor and his longtime colleague whom he's both very close to, die and nearly gets killed himself, that it's hard not to feel some shred of sympathy for him after what he goes through. And while it will most likely screw things up for the country as a whole, him getting retribution for Lee's death by letting the president get executed is a very understandable act.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Texafornia^ExplanationWhen the first trailer came out, many Americans mocked the idea of Texas and California both being the driving forces behind the rebellion since their populations by and large vote for rival political parties. Many viewed this as cowardice on the film's part, and reluctance to actually say anything meaningful on the current state of American politics.
  • Starring Robert Evans^ExplanationWhile hypothetical scenarios about a second American Civil War have been around since the first one, the concept was mainstreamed by Robert Evans' 2019 podcast It Could Happen Here. The main character, much like Evans, is a war correspondent who hoped her reporting on foreign conflicts would warn Americans of the dangers of political violence. Many people noticed the similarity, including Evans himself, leading to half-joking suggestions that Evans should be credited on the film.
  • I wanna see this in the theater before it comes to the streets!^ExplanationThe large series of events since the 2020s such as the increase in gun violence, social and political divides across the USA, the Capitol Hill storming, and the creation of Project 2025 have led many to believe that the USA is headed for a Second American Civil War. Jokes about the events of this film playing out in real life practically wrote themselves.
  • What kind of American are you?^ExplanationThis line has been parodied by substituting Americans with fandoms, and how they often have their own civil wars about which entries are good and bad.
• Misaimed Fandom: As soon as the first trailer dropped, some people were more interested in evaluating the plausibility of the scenario (especially since the concept is such a common trope) than discussing the actual message of the film that any scenario is horrifying. Not to mention the viewers that still want it to happen for real.
• Narm: To promote the movie, A24 released multiple posters showing various city areas either destroyed or under military occupation. Viewers quickly realized that the photos were AI generated due to some bizarre scale issues and strange reconfiguring of iconic skylines, but one poster in particular stood out as having received no quality control check before its release: a gunboat full of soldiers on a Los Angeles river sailing next to a swan boat... that is actually just a giant swan, seemingly marketing the movie as being about a civil war waged with mutant birds.
• No Yay: In a throwaway line, Tony brings up an unspecified incident where Joel attempted to hit on Jessie while he was very drunk in the New York hotel lobby, explaining in part why he might have agreed to bring a novice and relative stranger along on such a dangerous mission. However, there's a prominent age gap between both characters (and that Jessie looks even younger than her actual age), and their subsequent relationship never goes past being platonic friends with Joel serving as something of an older brother figure to her.
• Moment of Awesome: One the rare moments of genuine heroism in the film is when Sammy rams the two soldiers threatening to shoot the rest of the group with the car and getting the survivors to safety despite being shot.
• Older than You Think: Though prospect of California and Texas being the two main resistance leaders received mockery, this was not the first story to include it as a worldbuilding element. In the universe of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments, Texas and California both seceded from the United States while it was turning into Gilead and both newly formed countries are allies against it.
• One-Scene Wonder: Jesse Plemons has only a single scene totaling about five minutes of screentime, but his terrifying performance as a sociopathic militaman became singled out as one of the film's highlights. In addition to strong acting from Jesse Plemons, the fact so little is known about the militiaman despite him making such a significant impact in the plot of the film has led fans to theorizing what side he was fighting for (if he was even on one at all), what he was doing before the war, and what his ultimate motivations for leading a rogue militia were.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Frighteningly, the possibility of a Second American Civil War breaking out has become more likely over the past few years, as ideological polarization, democratic backsliding, partisan militias, and incivility in U.S. politics have increased. There are many extremist figures and groups, such as the Boogaloo Boys, who explicitly advocate for it.
• Signature Scene: Jesse Plemons' appearance as a Sociopathic Soldier who terrorizes the party quickly became the most well-known and widely talked about scene in the film.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Many have compared the movie's premise to Brian Wood's DMZ, which also focused on journalists in war zone during the speculative Second American Civil War.
  • This is Alex Garland's own Come and See, as this also told from the point of view of civilians in the war zone as they witness various atrocities. Considering that the movie is one of Garland's favorite movies, this may not be a surprise, but at the same time, much like how the making of Come and See caused its director Elem Klimov to retire his directing career, this has similarly affected Garland as well.
  • Many have called this mainstream film's answer to It Could Happen Here, as it shares many of the same elements emphasized by the podcast — political and regional polarization, clashes between myriad ideological militias, and food and supply shortages.
• Tainted by the Preview: The movie got a fair amount of criticism from the trailers due to the perception that it was trying to tackle the topic of a second American Civil War apolitically during an election year, mainly due to California and Texas being depicted as the leaders of the rebels since they're pretty much the most stereotypically blue state and red state, respectively. The movie indeed is not about a war between Republicans and Democrats (or even between just two sides, as the U.S. is divided into at least four different factions) and doesn't feature any real world figures or explanation of what led to this scenario, instead transposing the experience of war journalists and civilians in conflict zones onto a familiar landscape for Western audiences. The film's B- CinemaScore indicates that many audiences were ultimately let down by the movie, either because it didn't explicitly endorse their own political views, offer any solution for averting this kind of conflict, or (most likely) because it is largely devoid of the large scale war scenes heavily featured in the trailers.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: One recurring criticism is that the vague stance the movie takes on the politics, particularly why the currently ideologically opposite Texas and California would work together to oppose the President. If we don't know why the war happened, it's more difficult to care about how it eventually plays out and the effect that will have on our protagonists. Additionally, as some critics have pointed out, it's all well and good for the film to say that a civil war would be a disaster, but not identifying how one could start won't convince people to take the steps to avoid it before it's too late.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The protagonists were intended to be a celebration of journalism as an institution vital to democracy, but more on display are their ego and opportunism. They are primarily motivated by scoring an interview with a President who ordered journalists to be shot on sight, regularly put themselves and others in extreme danger for interviews and pictures, take photos of the wounded and dying rather than seek to help them, and don't have much in the way of characterization or motivation other than pursuing the next big scoop. What's more, in order to get access to the conflict zone to take their photos, the group regularly embeds themselves with soldiers who are committing flat out war crimes and are even actively complicit in them; this is especially evident with Joel, who laughs it up with the head of a militia group as they execute their prisoners and allows the W.F. squad to execute the President and pose with his corpse as revenge for Lee getting killed, and with Jessie, who naively barges her way into danger out of her own personal ambition and winds up getting Sammy and Lee killed because of it. Sammy and Lee come off more sympathetically, but their most heroic moments come when they cast aside their journalistic responsibilities as neutral observers and try to intervene to save lives, and they both wind up dead as a result.

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