“War is God’s way of teaching Americans Geography – “ Ambrose Bierce, 1875, 

By Dan Skip Allen , 

There are plenty of movies where there is some kind of absurd war sequence or downright fake war in them. One of the best is Dr. Strangelove, directed by Stanley Kubrick. It definitely shows the absurdity of war, a war room, and various ridiculous scenarios involving a war situation. The latest of these types of absurd films is “Atropia”. Atropia premiered in 2025 at the Sundance Film Festival and is going to be streaming on Mubi. This kind of comedy film isn’t for everybody but if you give them a chance they can be entertaining. This one was that if not much else.

Rheem Fayruz (Alia Shawkat) is a woman who is a reporter in a middle eastern country of Atropia. She is embedded with us troops in this country trying to keep the peace between the insurgents and soldiers who have ousted the previous regime. The real truth of the matter is that this is a fake country, and it’s used as a simulation for US troops to show what the actual war in Iraq would be like. This woman is actually an actress playing a role to give these soldiers an idea of what they could encounter in one of these Middle Eastern countries. This simulation even has a shriek Abu Dice (Callum Turner) for good measure. That’s where this comedy farce goes the extra mile. It throws a real romantic relationship into the mix.

“Atropia is a 600 square mile section of the California desert with all of the landmarks and terrain of a country in the Middle East. It’s Ft Irwin, and it has a vast immersive simulation. A battlefield disguised as a real country. It has smoke, fire, explosions, and many other things that look and feel like a war time scenario soldiers would encounter if they were indeed in one of the warlord Middle Eastern countries. Even the simulated real-life situations are very realistic. One evolves a hostage and bombs that go off. That is the extent of how the US government wants the men and women of the armed forces in 2006 to feel given a scenario of this nature. They weren’t messing around.

Besides the two characters I mentioned, there is an extensive supporting cast in this movie. There are various levels of personnel in the film that are models after people who would be involved in this type of situation. Some of them are Pina (Chloe Sevigny), an executive board member who helps make decisions regarding the base. The Actor (Channing Tatum) is another actor who comes to set to get a feeling what it’s like in war because he’s about to star in a similar war film with a situation like this. Jamie McShane, a US military officer who is in charge of a new crop of soldiers training in this exercise. Mr Speaker (Tim Blake Nelson) a politician,  Nancy (Jane Levy) an actress playing a reporter embedded with a group of soldiers, Jerry (Sal Lopez) a tech guy on set, Candy (Lola Kirke), Medicare Grimes (Chloe East) Hayden (Tim Heideker), all supporting characters. The cast is fantastic. They all know the absurdity of the scenario they are in and act accordingly to give the audience watching an entertaining film.

The writer/director Hailey Gates puts the viewer of this film into the world of a soldier about to be shipped off to war. The part she makes very clear is that this is a very funny simulation, and nobody’s taking this seriously at all. This is a job for most and possibly a relationship moment for some. What I got was that war is a very serious thing, but it may be something generals and presidents can create in a fictional setting. As shown in other films showing how the United States can fake a moonlanding of other scenarios, this makes a lot of sense in California of all places. The home of Hollywood. Movie magic is all around. She made me believe this was a real circumstance for the most part.

Shawkat is an actress I’ve seen in a few things like “The Old Man”, “Blink Twice” and “Arrested Development”. She is a good actress. This role was perfectly suited for her sensibilities as an actress. She perfectly embodied this dual role of an actress playing an American woman posing as a Middle Eastern woman, but in fact she is an actress in real life who is trying to get involved with another cast member. Her and Turner are terrific on screen together. She did a great job playing multiple roles in the comedy farce dealing with a realistic war situation. She is the main reason why you should see this movie at all. 

“Atropia” won the grand jury prize at this past January’s Sundance Film Festival despite getting mixed reviews. I don’t think many people want to see a simulated war scenario considering the current US president who shall not be named here set up a war with the help of another country because of the sole purpose to get their oil rights. Also, to make sure they couldn’t make an atomic bomb. Our ally in the Middle East was hands-on with this war. So I don’t think this was a very funny situation and the movie wasn’t taken as such even though it was meant as a tongue in cheek film. Not everybody was laughing. I give gates a lot of credit for coming up with such a bold idea, though. Maybe in another year, it may have come across better. This year wasn’t the year, though, from my perspective. 

2 ½ stars