It's refreshing to play a woman who's not a damsel in distress…
| Published date | 19 April 2024 |
| Publication title | Huddersfield Daily Examiner |
At the heart of the story are war journalists Lee, a photographer played by Spider-Man star Kirsten; Joel, a reporter played by Narcos' Wagner Moura; and Sammy, a veteran journalist played by Dune's Stephen McKinley Henderson.
We meet them in a war-torn New York, with Lee and Joel planning to get to Washington DC to secure an interview with the dictatorial president [Nick Offerman] before rebel factions advance on the capital.
Sammy tags along for the ride, aiming for the front line in Charlottesville,
Virginia, while the trio is also joined by young aspiring photo-journalist Jessie, played by Priscilla's Cailee Spaeny, on the treacherous journey down the east coast.
"I just wanted to make journalists the heroes," explains Alex, 53. "I felt journalists have been under attack in a really complicated way for quite a long time, and people, in many ways, don't trust them anymore.
"But there are journalists out there doing incredibly good work.
"And the question is not whether they're doing good work or not, it's: 'Why is their good work not getting traction? And why are they being attacked in the way they're being attacked?'
"So I wanted to put them at the heart of it. I grew up around journalists, my dad worked on a newspaper.
I like journalists and I think they're necessary and important. And that's it."
It's interesting to watch the journalists observe and document the horrors of war, particularly the contrast between the experienced Lee and Joel and fresh recruit Jessie.
Their job requires them to get into the gory details of the conflict, literally dodging bullets to get the right shot and experience the story, but they can't intervene, only observe, and it's clear how witnessing so much violence has impacted them.
"We had a two-week rehearsal process, so we watched a lot of documentaries, and a lot of films," explains Kirsten, 41, of her own preparation.
The star - who is married to Breaking Bad actor Jesse Plemons, who also appears in the film - explains that one of the most effective ways for getting into battlescarred
Lee's headspace was a "Marie Colvin documentary, called Under The Wire". It tells the story of the war correspondent Marie Colvin, and photographer Paul Conroy, who reported from Syria in 2012. Colvin was killed in the war-torn country...
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