The America depicted in Civil War is not half as alarming as the real one

As the supreme court heard arguments relating to the 6 January riot and Donald Trump sat in a criminal court in Manhattan, cinemas across America have been showing scenes from an imagined world after the end of democracy. The movie Civil War, written and directed by Alex Garland, depicts a conflict-ridden US in which rebel forces battle to overthrow the government. As a thought experiment, this would be a lot more fun in a year in which a man with 91 felony charges wasn’t standing for his second term as president. As it is, the film currently at No 1 at the US box office is under some pressure to say something meaningful about where we are now.

Civil War does have things to say: about how war is bad, and violence corrupts, and once things get under way people exploit the chaos for all sorts of reasons – which explains the presence of Florida in the film’s imagined secessionist uprising. It’s a gripping ride that, depending on your view, is either shrewdly non-partisan in a way that assumes the audience can fill in the gaps for themselves (the New York Times), an empty but entertaining romp with lots of explosions (the New Yorker) or a provocation to liberals who don’t understand what movies are for (the Hollywood Reporter). Meanwhile, in court this week, prospective jurors in the former president’s hush money trial were warned to keep details of themselves confidential, to preserve against the possibility of juror intimidation – the kind of deep background detail in which the film has no interest.

Instead, we jump to an unspecified near-future in which the US president, a generic strongman played by Nick Offerman, has seized an illegal third term and disbanded the FBI. Two factions across three states have popped up to