by Tim Gordon
Set in a meticulously constructed faux-Iraqi village on a U.S. military base, Atropia is a darkly funny, melancholic, and quietly affecting war satire that turns roleplay into reality.
In her immersive and impressively assured feature-length debut, Hailey Gates crafts a surreal and richly layered meditation on performance, power, and the often-blurred lines between duty and delusion. The result is a sharp and soulful exploration of what happens when theater, warfare, and personal longing collide.
Alia Shawkat stars as an aspiring actress who accepts a gig bringing realism to the military’s elaborate training simulations. As part of a cast tasked with enacting Middle Eastern civilian life for American soldiers, she’s fully immersed in a town built not for people, but for preparation, a living stage where daily explosions are rehearsed, emotions are studied, and even death is blocked out with precision. But when she begins to fall for a soldier (Callum Turner) playing the part of an insurgent, the scripted barriers separating their lives from their roles start to fall away.
Gates uses this uncanny backdrop, a hyper-stylized, unsettlingly theatrical war zone, to explore how narrative can overtake reality, how emotional truth can blossom even in the most artificial environments, and how institutions consume personal identity under the guise of service. With biting wit and poignant restraint, Atropia reflects on the emotional labor of acting and the psychological toll of endlessly rehearsing violence.
Shawkat is quietly magnetic in a role that demands subtlety and emotional ambiguity. She brings warmth and weariness to a woman who isn’t sure whether she’s lost herself in the role or finally found something real. Turner is equally compelling, imbuing his performance with layers of confusion, restraint, and aching vulnerability. Together, they provide the film’s emotional core, grounding its satire in authentic, human stakes.
Visually, Atropia is both austere and evocative, with carefully composed shots that enhance the artifice of the space while hinting at the suppressed humanity underneath. Gates’ direction is confident, threading moments of absurdity with surprisingly tender insight. Her background in fashion and performance art informs the film’s design and tone, but it never feels gimmicky; instead, Atropia emerges as an original and quietly potent reflection on identity, performance, and the fragile borders between fiction and feeling.
By the end, what lingers is not the satire, but the sadness of people playing parts they didn’t choose, and of stories written not to heal, but to train, control, and contain. Atropia is a war film, a love story, and a lament all disguised in uniform.
Grade: B
