There is an opinion on ‘Civil War’ and its prediction of American collapse

Social Media and the 2020 Covid-19 Epidemic: A Review of the 2022 Screenplay of the Adaptive Director Alex Garland

When director Alex Garland sat down in 2020 to write his new movie, Civil War, he was clearly worried about the polarization of American society. The former US president was still in office and the Covid-19 epidemic was starting to take hold. It was a much different country from the one in which Garland is releasing his biggest film to date.

For all its visual artistry—and there is plenty of that in this film—Garland has created a confused narrative that attempts to portray all sides as evil, with only the journalists at the center the real arbiters of truth. But in an age where extremists are ready and primed to decode and interpret any piece of media for their own ends, what Garland has really done is create a film in which these groups can see themselves on screen as the good guys.

In 2020 Garland wrote the script in which he argues that both sides are to blame, even though this is just months away from the most consequential election in American history.

Garland is well know for giving audiences the ability to interpret the meaning in a variety of ways. Such as the future of the universe in 2018’s Annihilation, or the idea of gender with the 2022 horror flick Men. Garland warned about the debate raging about whether artificial intelligence is positive for society or bad for the world in Ex Machina, nearly a decade ago.