‘Atropia’ Review: Alia Shawkat & Callum Turner Play War Games In Absurdist Bush-Era Satire — Sundance Film Festival

Glenn Garner
·3-min read
‘Atropia’ Review: Alia Shawkat & Callum Turner Play War Games In Absurdist Bush-Era Satire — Sundance Film Festival

In writer-director Hailey Gates’ directorial debut Atropia, she dives into the Bush-era culture of toxic masculinity, nationalism and Islamophobia with an amusing and profoundly absurdist sense of satire.

Set in 2006, Atropia takes place at the titular U.S. military training ground in the California desert, where actors role-play as villagers in countries where the government plans to invade. Alia Shawkat stars as Fayruz, an ambitious actress determined to make her big break in Hollywood while working in the simulation, despite her conflicting feelings about the war in Iraq.

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Although her parents accuse her of betraying her culture as they disapprove of her preparing soldiers to invade their country, the training ground is the only place casting her type (not a surprise for that era of Hollywood). The fractured relationship with her family represents an all-too-real generational divide for many children of immigrants through a heartfelt, yet cheeky portrayal by Shawkat.

Following her collaboration with Shawkat for the 2019 short Shako Mako, part of Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales series, Gates fleshes out Fayruz’s ambitious motivations with a complex and entertaining performance from her star.

During a quick but effectively hilarious cameo by Channing Tatum as a visiting movie star preparing for a role, he and Fayruz ham it up, upstaging each other in their respective death scenes.

Meanwhile, the film offers an element of romantic comedy as Fayruz sparks chemistry with Abu Dice (Callum Turner), a married veteran playing an insurgent. While their comedic chemistry is undeniable, their “opposites attract” dynamic bridges cultures as she attempts to teach his fellow soldiers how to respect Iraqi citizens while invading them.

Admitting he doesn’t know what they’re fighting for in Iraq, Abu hopes she can help him make sense of it, a question that keeps recurring through the film as nobody seems to known an answer. It’s ripe with social commentary that is more relevant than ever nearly 20 years later.

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Inspired by Medina Wasl, a real U.S. military training camp in the Mojave Desert, Atropia is fully staffed with actors for all roles, including Jane Levy as Nancy, posing as a war correspondent in The Box, the name for the confines of the camp.

Reporting for Box News, the faux network rhymes with another fake news organization known for spreading information, bearing a very familiar logo.

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Meanwhile, Chloë Sevigny and Tim Heidecker give brilliantly detached performances as sleazy military directors Pina and Hayden. While blowing the government budget on sushi flown in from Vegas, they keep up patriotic appearances for the new recruits, refusing to hire an amputee actress who lost her arm in war as it would send a negative message to the soldiers. As Pina so eloquently puts it, a DUI is OK, but not an IUD.

With the government radicalizing a new generation of soldiers, Fayruz keeps a secret that could get her fired, something that surely weighs on her as a Muslim woman living in post-9/11 America.

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Ripe with aughts nostalgia around the OG iPod, frosted lip gloss and Guy Fieri’s favorite flame-printed shirts, Atropia is ultimately a clever meditation on the atmosphere of war and division that has become increasingly commonplace in the U.S. since 9/11.

Without feeling too preachy, it’s an important film in the Trump 2.0 era, given the current state of international affairs and conflict within the U.S. largely caused by misinformation. And with an unnecessary war that resulted in countless deaths and destruction in Iraq, the film’s subject has never been more relevant.

Producers are Naima Abed, Emilie Georges, Luca Guadagnino, Lana Kim and Jett Steiger.

Title: Atropia
Festival: Sundance (U.S. Dramatic Competition)
Director-screenwriter: Hailey Gates
Cast: Alia Shawkat, Callum Turner, Chloë Sevigny, Tim Heidecker, Jane Levy
Sales agent: UTA Independent Film Group, WME
Running time: 1 hr 26 mins

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