Going into Alex Garland’s astonishing new film, “Civil War,” I expected to be irritated by the implausibility of its premise. In one 2022 poll, 43 percent of Americans said they thought a civil war within the next decade was at least somewhat likely. “Civil War” has received plenty of adulatory reviews, but Garland has also been widely criticized for eliding the ideological forces driving America’s fracturing. But now that I’ve seen “Civil War,” which is neither glib nor cynical, Garland’s decision to keep the film’s politics a little ambiguous seems like a source of its power. Still, it’s not a stretch to interpret the film as a premonition of how a seething, entropic country could collapse under the weight of Donald Trump’s return.

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Persons: Alex Garland’s, ”, Garland, “, I’m, —, Lee, it’s, Donald Trump’s Organizations: “, Florida Alliance, Western Forces of, New People’s Army, Southwest, Portland Maoists Locations: America, California, Texas, Loyalist, East Coast, Western Forces of California, Austin , Texas