Atropia, fresh off winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, is a sharp, satirical dark comedy from writer-director Hailey Gates, expanding on her short film Shako Mako.
Set in 2006, the film takes place in a hyper-realistic military training ground in the Californian desert, where soldiers rehearse for deployment to Iraq in a simulated warzone populated by actors, scripted conflicts, and staged explosions.
Alia Shawkat stars as Fayruz, an aspiring actress playing an Iraqi civilian, who sees the war simulation as her ticket to Hollywood.
As she navigates the blurred lines between performance and reality—coaching fellow actors, perfecting self-tapes, and manipulating the system for a shot at stardom—she crosses paths with “Abu Dice” (Callum Turner), a soldier-turned-simulated-insurgent whose role-playing exposes the uneasy intersections of war, identity, and spectacle.
Through biting humor and absurdity, Gates critiques the media’s role in shaping war narratives and the military’s performative approach to cultural sensitivity, with surreal layers of fiction collapsing in on themselves.
While Atropia is full of sharp observations, it never fully commits to either scathing satire or deep political critique. The film often pulls back just as it approaches its most thought-provoking ideas. The tension between Fayruz and Abu Dice suggests a deeper commentary on the psychological impact of war and the commodification of conflict, but Atropia hesitates to fully unpack its most compelling themes.
Still, Shawkat is a magnetic lead, delivering a nuanced performance that blends comedy and vulnerability.
Though Atropia doesn’t always land its most ambitious swings, it remains a fascinating, darkly funny deconstruction of war, Hollywood, and the fine line between authenticity and illusion.
Letter Grade: C