One of cinema’s rising stars, Cailee Spaeny‘s versatility has exposed her to a mass audience. Whether she’s playing Priscilla Presley or the new Scream Queen in the recently released Alien: Romulus, Spaeny has something for everyone. Best of all, she’s a young star in a Hollywood apparatus that has failed to develop young stars outside the franchise model. No film capitalized on her dynamic energy more than Civil War, one of 2024’s noisiest releases. Alex Garland‘s chilling anti-war thriller was hotly divisive among critics over whether the film had any insightful commentary, but we can all agree that Spaeny’s vulnerable performance outlined the sobering shock and awe of a war-torn nation of the not-so-distant future.

Cailee Spaeny Travels Across a War-Torn Nation in Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’

The 26-year-old Cailee Spaeny has made a name for herself among cinephiles thanks to her carefully curated filmography featuring collaborations with visionary directors and accomplished stars. She perfectly matched Sofia Coppola‘s quiet, meditative reflection of the Gilded Cage in Priscilla, where she played the lonely and alienated wife of Elvis Presley. Before embarking on a cross-country odyssey amid a politically divided nation, Spaeny starred in all eight episodes of Alex Garland’s dystopian sci-fi miniseries, Devs. To boost her recognition, she’s becoming a presence in franchise cinema as the star of Alien: Romulus and the upcoming Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Thankfully, these series emphasize a respective director’s singular vision rather than appeasing the lore of a brand or property.

Met with generally positive reviews, Civil War envisioned a dystopian, but wholly plausible, vision of an America divided against itself. Garland’s film tracks this modern-day civil war from the perspective of journalists, Lee (Kirsten Dunst), Joel (Wagner Moura), and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), traveling across the nation to obtain an interview with the disgraced President (Nick Offerman). Tagging alongside the three experienced journalists is Jessie (Spaeny), a plucky newcomer who idolizes Lee. The machinations of the ongoing war and its political backdrop are vague, so much so that the lack of explicit commentary surrounding the specifics of the war led some critics to deride Garland for being cowardly as a writer-director. Refusing to engage with hardline political rhetoric in such a polarized political landscape feels like a slap in the face to our intelligence, but Garland sought something more abstract about the brutality and eerie ambiguity of war.

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If it seems perplexing that Garland’s direction has little interest in engaging with the political backdrop of his film, it’s because his characters have lost all notion of good and evil. The various armies the team of journalists encounters, notably one harrowing stand-off where Jesse Plemmons asks “What kind of American are you?”, do not belong to any particular side from their perspective. America exists in a haze where Democrats and Republicans are indecipherable with each other. Theoretically, if a civil war were to break out in the real world, these sides would appear clearly divided from the outside, but when you’re in the middle of the wreckage and carnage, partisanship is a blur. Because the world has stooped to such nihilistic lows, Lee, Joel, and Sammy have devolved into wolves, soulless hunters preying upon a precarious nation. They’re not pursuing social or political activism, but rather, they’re chasing an enticing scoop to feel invigorated. Their implicit and unromanticized quest to embark on this journey undermines the notion that Civil War is a preachy love letter to journalism.

Cailee Spaeny’s Jessie Is Idyllic and Hopeful Compared to Her Colleagues in ‘Civil War’

While the three vets have been stripped of their soul and passion, Jessie still has aspirations and idealism. Against the wishes of Lee, who has no desire to babysit this naive kid, she tags along with the crew on their perilous journey to Washington DC. Jessie, who is influenced by Lee and studies all her famous photographs, evokes the hopeful eagerness of a recent college grad. Where Lee and Joel are seemingly ambivalent toward any allegiances, Jessie expresses a keen interest in the thorny details of the hostile political environment. After all, she is the only character who explicitly references topical terms in the real world, as she recalls Lee’s previous work covering an ominous “Antifa riot.” Compared to her new colleagues, Jessie has more spunk and curiosity surrounding the peripheral hazards of their journey, which gets her in near-fatal trouble with the Jesse Plemons rogue soldier.

Jessie’s relationship with Lee is paramount to the muted emotional crux of Civil War, one that is subtle enough to suggest that the film is “empty,” a term used by its harshest critics. The characterization extends off the screen, as Cailee Spaeny viewed Kirsten Dunst as a role model, and their shared experiences working with Sofia Coppola strengthened their kinship (Dunst recommended Spaeny to Coppola when casting Priscilla). This is why Jessie’s affection for Lee radiates off the screen amid the white-knuckle thrills of this intense war drama, best displayed in the scene when they shop for dresses inside a shop in a quaint town. She looks to Lee as a surrogate mother figure, which proves to be poignant when the weathered vet shows little interest in human growth, as she knows the precariousness of the nation far outweighs their faint bond.

Cailee Spaeny Conveys Shattered Innocence in Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’

Jessie is undoubtedly the heart of Civil War in its tranquil moments and visceral combat sequences. After the aforementioned “What kind of American are you?” near execution, she is visibly the most affected by the horror of that sequence, shaking and vomiting in the car. A drunken Joel explodes with rage after Sammy is killed during their escape, and proclaims that he died an unjust and pointless death. Lee tries to console Jessie, insisting that Sammy would be proud to die on the field doing what he loved. This exchange eloquently brings both humanity and nihilism to Civil War‘s bleak commentary on warfare. Feeling distraught is understandable, but at the end of the day, these journalists are destined to be lambs to the slaughter if they care about their work. From this point onward, her hope and idealism are shattered.

During the gripping climax in Washington D.C., where the nation’s capital is turned into a combat field and the Western Forces breach into the White House and execute the President, Jessie heedlessly positions herself to capture the best photograph, even stepping into the line of fire. Once inside the Oval Office, the team allows the militia to storm inside and kill the President as Jessie gets the perfect photograph of the Commander-in-Chief’s corpse, an image that will be headlining every news outlet in the world. The coldness of this moment serves to further alienate the critics who decried the film for its lack of didactic commentary, but the emotional vacancy of a journalist standing in the middle of a political coup speaks to the dehumanizing effect of engaging with these violent affairs.

Our concern over the young movie star shortage in 2024 is still prevalent, but Cailee Spaeny is following the career path we implore rising stars to take. Jumping between high and low and franchise work to indie showcases, Spaeny has a bright future ahead as a commercially viable name and a celebrated prestigious actor. Because of the urgency of its text and audience provocations, she was never going to be the center of attention in Civil War. However, Alex Garland’s film demonstrates Spaeny’s attributes ingeniously, as we watch a guileless ingénue’s aspirations destroyed in this war-torn America.

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