Alex Garland's Civil War, which stars Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura and Cailee Spaeny, has been labeled by critics as a "gripping," "intense" experience as it depicts a group of journalists traveling from New York to Washington, D.C., amid a brutal civil war between different pockets of Americans. Their goal is to interview the president (Nick Offerman) after he has isolated himself in the capital and denies the true state of the war.
If you can't wait to watch Civil War or have some questions about what happened and or what it may mean, we're breaking down the Civil War ending right here. Fair warning, SPOILERS ahead.
The quarter of journalists that head out on this dangerous journey are Lee (Dunst), a world-famous war photographer whose years in the field have desensitized her, Joel (Moura), a writer who loves the adrenaline of being in the field, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a veteran reporter and mentor to Lee, and Jessie (Spaeny), an aspiring photographer who convinces them to bring her along.
Because of the devastation from the war, they have to drive the long way round, with the plan to stop at the front lines in Charlottesville, Va., before Lee and Joel push on ahead to DC on their own, hoping to get into the capitol before the advancing Western Forces. This leads them to run into a number of dangerous situations, allowing Lee and Jessie to bond.
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Lee was not a fan of bringing Jessie along, knowing the pain and difficulties her job entails. But once she is with them, Lee makes it a priority to teach Jessie how to perform the most important role of a war photographer: documenting the horror so others can be affected by it. Jessie even asks Lee if she were killed, would Lee take the photo? All she says in response is "what do you think?" (We certainly think that signals yes).
Even so, this is a particularly difficult trip, emphasized by an incident where Jessie is taken by a group of militants to a mass grave they are digging. Lee and Joel attempt to defuse the tense situation peacefully, but one of the soldiers (played by Jesse Plemons) wants to know "what kind of Americans" they are, threatening to kill them if he doesn't like their answers. It seems like things are going to go very bad when Sammy, who stayed back because his age would have prevented him from making a quick getaway, drives their car into the soldier, allowing them to escape. However, as they are doing so, other soldiers fire after them and Sammy is hit, leading to his eventual death.
This comes just as they are outside Charlottesville, meeting up with the Western Forces. With the army ready to move into the city, Lee, Joel and Jessie collect themselves to join and document this final assault on D.C.
What happens to Lee in Civil War?
Lee has been nothing if not a focused war photographer who isn't rattled by anything (and from flashbacks, we know that she has seen a lot). However, from all they have experienced on their journey and the loss of Sammy, Lee appears to reach a breaking point.
As the battle rages on, Lee is uncharacteristically shaken, unable to take photos and even cowers amid all the chaos around her. However, believing the president is still inside the White House and seeing a way inside, Lee regains her composure and leads Joel and Jessie inside the building, followed by a group of soldiers.
She is back in action, snapping photos of the firefight with the final group of Secret Service officers protecting the president, even dodging bullets again for better shots. However, when she sees Jessie move out from protection into a potential line of fire to do the same, Lee jumps in front of her and pushes her to the ground. Lee is then shot and killed.
At the beginning of the movie, Lee was just as passionate as Joel to get to the president and get a photo of him in the final days (in this case minutes) of the war. But in her final moment, she put aside the instincts she used her entire career — passing on simply documenting an incident and instead playing an active part in saving Jessie's life.
What happens to Jessie in Civil War?
On the flip side of that equation is Jessie. While she has ambitions to be just like Lee, she struggles in the early going with keeping her emotions out of what she is witnessing. But even so, she refuses to be left behind and continues to throw herself into these dangerous positions.
By the time they get into D.C. with the Western Forces, Jessie is the one who is calm amid the chaos, no longer being held back by Joel (literally, he held onto her bulletproof vest in earlier instances) and taking risky positions to get a good photo. This continues when they go into the White House, to the point where she goes into the line of fire in an attempt to get a shot. Even when she is saved by Lee, she does not stop, taking pictures of Lee, including as she falls from being shot; showing the mentality that Lee previously said she would have if the situation was reversed.
Jessie takes no real time to mourn her mentor, as she joins Joel and the soldiers in the Oval Office where the president is hiding. The soldiers kill the president, but Jessie does not take the photo immediately. She waits a few beats until the soldiers and Joel are standing over the dead president and looking at her, some even with a smile on their face.
What does the ending of Civil War mean?
That final picture Jessie takes is what we see as the credits roll, slowly developing to show everything in great detail. It's a haunting image to end on and one that we think Garland means to leave audiences with as a warning: don't let ourselves fall into this situation, where Americans fight against one another and destroy all of our institutions and fundamental beliefs because we can't overcome our differences and disagreements.
It is never explained what occurred that took America into a civil war in the movie. All we have to go on is that the president has taken military action against his own citizens, has illegally stayed in office for a third term and actively denies the truth about the war in his public addresses. Garland does not seem to care about the why, rather wanting to make it clear to everyone that this is a not totally unrealistic outcome of our current political discourse.
In addition to the violence — with scenes expertly crafted with sound and IMAX visuals to make audiences feel like they are in a war zone — perhaps one of the biggest takeaways is who makes up the Western Forces: California and Texas. Many have found this detail, shared in the trailer, truly odd, as the two states as they stand today couldn't seem further apart politically. But that may be the point: in this story, they were able to put any differences aside and as a result, they are the group that triumphs.
But as for our main characters, Lee's sacrifice appears to be a passing of the torch. After being disillusioned because her work around the world proved to not be the warning to the US that she had hoped it could be, she finds something — or in this case someone — more important to her than getting the shot. As for Jessie, she is ready to take on Lee's mission of documenting for everyone else to know what happened and hopefully be impacted by it.
Here's how you can watch Civil War, which is playing right now in movie theaters worldwide.
