Kirsten Dunst is someone you can’t pin down. Refusing to be typecast and gracefully graduating from child actor to Supporting Oscar nominee, Dunst has landed the lead role of a lifetime as jaded war photojournalist Lee Smith in Alex Garland’s unflinching dystopian American nightmare, Civil War.

Garland’s film opens with the President of the United States (Nick Offerman) preparing to address the nation with reassurances of strength and unity, but the images tell a different story. Intercut with his speech are clips of news footage that stand in stark contrast to his words: police wearing riot gear, protesters pushing against shields, and evidence of brutality. Set in an unnamed period, Garland doesn’t have to be literal in his storytelling to suggest that the social unrest that gained headlines in 2020 and 2021 inevitably led to this moment.

The U.S. is embroiled in another civil war, this time in a world where Texas and California have joined together in a “Western Front” against the government of a three-term president. The details of how society got here aren’t explained and don’t need to be, as the conflict is just the driver for the film’s main focus on veteran conflict photojournalist Lee, writer Joel (Wagner Moura), their journalist mentor Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), and fresh-faced newbie photojournalist Jessie (Cailee Spaeny).

More a road movie than a war movie, Civil War finds its heroes in the media who embark on a journey from a New York hellscape where residents fight for supplies amid rolling blackouts through the Western Front’s holding zone in Charlottesville to the White House. Lee and Joel hope to capture the final shots as the war reaches its climax and land an interview with a president whose days are numbered. The majority of the film takes place in the car as the press gang travels across desolate stretches of the country.

Rest assured, Garland has plenty of explosions and battle scenes in Civil War. Shots of helicopters and fire raining down on the Lincoln Memorial might feel more at home in a Michael Bay movie, but Garland and cinematographer Rob Hardy bring beauty and horror to the battles. Interwoven with firefights and blood are the chillingly real-looking stills captured by the photojournalists, be they soldiers taking their last breaths or a burned-out helicopter in a JC Penney parking lot.

The film is almost indifferent to the motivations for the war, perhaps suggesting that our real-life indifference is what led to this outcome. It is – and should be – shocking for Americans to see this level of carnage and brutality on American soil. These are images of war that have thus far remained far from the suburban U.S., brought to the masses by photojournalists at the heart of the conflict. Both Lee and Jessie remark how their parents are “on a farm” somewhere, pretending this entire conflict isn’t happening on American soil. They are a stand-in for those who are complacent about the current social unrest, adamant that this vision of a civil war couldn’t possibly touch close to home.

In a career filled with memorable roles in everything from superhero movies, Sofia Coppola-directed dramas, to cult classics (Drop Dead Gorgeous, anyone?), Dunst may have landed her most compelling and complex role yet. Lee stands at a crossroads in life: Weary from capturing images of war for a public that seems indifferent to suffering, she has lost her humanity. Juxtaposed with young Jessie, the two characters are on opposing trajectories as the newbie learns to harden herself to the horrors she witnesses. The point at which these characters cross is gut-wrenchingly beautiful and delicately exquisite, a credit to Garland’s writing, and the terrific performances by Dunst and Spaeny who only build upon the excellent on-screen naïveté she cultivated in Priscilla.

Fans of Garland’s previous works like Ex Machina and The Beach know that bleak and detached can be his modus operandi, which makes Civil War all the more interesting. It feels like his most human story to date and quite possibly one of the best films we’ll see this year. Do yourself a favour and see it on the largest screen possible.

Civil War opens in theatres on April 12.