Plot Summary – In a dystopian future America, a team of military-embedded journalists races against time to reach Washington, D.C., before rebel factions descend upon the White House.

★★★★½ 

Watched 12 Apr 2024

I’ve largely been unimpressed with Alex Garland’s other work. I remember being pretty indifferent to Annihilation (2018) and I despised Men (2022) so I was going into this film pretty skeptical. I was absolutely floored by how good this film was. It was consistently entertaining and the world was so carefully constructed. What would lead America to be in another Civil War? The ‘why’ doesn’t matter to this film, it only matters what would happen because of it. There is so much attention to detail about what would happen to currency, immigration, food, electricity, etc. This is a very well thought out world and the protagonists are all so well portrayed.

Kirsten Dunst is phenomenal in this film but I was blown away by the other two leads. I have wanted to see Wagner Moura get a big Hollywood role for so long after watching his brilliant portrayal of Pablo Escobar in Narcos . This is that role for him. He plays the character with so much depth and nuance but also so much bravado and an inherent coolness. Cailee Spaeny is also a revelation in this film and her character arc was so convincing and beautiful.

I highly recommend this film to people. It is sold in its trailer as a blind action movie, but it’s so much deeper, slower, and meditative than that. I really enjoyed the film and I would implore you to check it out if you have any relation, even through film, to America.