Civil War film-maker Alex Garland: ‘In the US and UK there’s a lot to be very concerned about’

Alex Garland smiles broadly only once while in my company, and it’s when I’m about to leave. As I put on my coat and say goodbye, an irrepressible and unmistakable grin of relief spreads across the film-maker’s face. I don’t take it personally – and Garland is unfailingly courteous throughout our conversation – but this seems indicative of both his serious character in general, and his uneasy mood at present. I wonder if it is partly due to filmgoers like me, with our insistent (mis)interpretation of his work, that Garland says that his latest film will also be the last he directs.

And what a way to go out. With a rumoured $50m budget, Civil War is the most expensive film ever made by indie production house A24, and on an epic scale that surpasses Garland’s previous, also ambitious, films. Plus, if you thought the gender politics of his 2022 folk horror Men were confrontational, or that the ambiguity of 2018 sci-fi thriller Annihilation was courageous, or the take-down of tech billionaires in 2015’s Ex-Machina provocative … Well then, try putting out a US-set action thriller called Civil War in a presidential election year.

Kirsten Dunst stars as Lee, a hardbitten photojournalist who leads a group of war correspondents on a road trip towards the conflict’s front line. They’re used to reporting on stories abroad, but as the film opens, the US is already deep into a devastating civil war (cause unspecified) that has turned the sight of tanks rolling down 5th Avenue into a near-everyday occurrence. Still, Lee and her companions are determined to report on their county’s demise, whatever the cost to their own mental or moral health. “There is something in the film which is trying to be protective of [journalists],” says