The pacifist gospel of Civil War

OUTSIDE OF ATLANTA, A CREAKY WHITE VAN WEAVED down a highway lined with abandoned cars. A helicopter sat in the parking lot of a charred JCPenney. Armed guards in military fatigues patrolled checkpoints. A death squad dumped corpses into a mass grave. Artillery boomed in the offing.

- MATTHEW JACOBS

It was all part of a movie set, but to the actors starring in Civil War, felt all too real. The new film, opening in theaters April 12, takes place in a near-future United States ravaged by conflict. California and Texas, which make up the so-called Western Forces, have seceded from the union in response to an authoritarian third-term President who has jettisoned the Constitution, disbanded the FBI, authorized airstrikes on his own citizens, and now aims to "eliminate the final pockets of resistance." To create as credible a dystopia as possible, director Alex Garland and the crew turned parts of the Atlanta region into a soberingly plausible hot spot.

"It felt very disturbing," says Kirsten Dunst, one of the leads, of the film's blurring with reality. "Toward the end, it was all the noise and the gunfire, and then just looking at the news and seeing that there's another school shooting."

By the time Civil War premiered at the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival in mid-March, it had already generated some heat online. Reddit commenters debated whether invoking such severe domestic turbulence is irresponsible at a time when the nation's political divisions have reached a fever pitch. One person worried it "might be interpreted as a role model to MAGA groups if not portrayed carefully." Garland, the British science-fiction ace who made Ex Machina and Annihilation, anticipated polarized reactions. In a sense, they're why he made Civil War in the first place. "It's really a film about why polarization is not a great thing," he says. "It's trying to have a conversation. It's trying to find common ground."