Culture Society, Identity and Belonging
“If you’re feeling triggered, you aren’t alone.” Thus Manohla Dargis, the NYT film critic, on Civil War, Alex Garland’s biggest film to date, which opened worldwide at the weekend and went straight to the top at the US box office. It made nearly $26 million in three days in North America so will easily recoup its $50 million-odd budget when future takings and the rest of the world are factored in. It’s about a civil war in the States in the very near future, so the milieu is familiar even if the team sheets aren’t that plausible (California and Texas are on the same side). So who’s triggered? If that’s the same thing in cinema terms as feeling compelled to see it, the answer is mainly men, mainly of a “liberal” or “moderate” political persuasion, according to a PostTrak exit poll. There’s plenty of violence, Dargis says, and if it feels more intense than usual bear in mind the subject matter has “long been workshopped in American political discourse and in mass culture”. Trump’s first criminal trial starts this week.