I met with Alex Garland, director of the new Buzzy Film Civil War, on the day of the solar eclipse.

I feel like the eclipse is happening right the second. Is that weird?

Sorry to interrupt. I'm like, it's very dark out.

It is, and also people are standing by windows on the other side of the street, which is a...

I mean, it was suddenly very still, very quiet on the streets of New York,

right outside of the A24 movie studio offices where we were meeting.

And it was eerie, but it was fitting.

His movie is set in a quiet, war-torn American landscape,

one where Texas and California have gone to war

against a three-term president who has disbanded the FBI and deemed journalists enemy combatants

who may be shot on site. The story starts as that civil war is coming to an end. You're treated

to images of burnt-out military helicopters and mall

parking lots, interstate highways clogged with abandoned cars. And you follow a group of photojournalists

trying to capture the final images of the war at any cost.

Now, Garland was the writer behind the zombie flick 28 days later,

and frankly, I wished a zombie would have appeared in this film to kind of offer some relief from what felt like an all-too-real scenario.

This is a movie that asks what could happen if the system of checks and balances that hold

a democracy together fall apart.

And I wanted to know how do you talk about that without lecturing or talking down to the people

that you want to see it.

This is the assignment.

I'm Audie Cornish.

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