It’s the story of a real, fake place. That is, Hailey Gates’ new movie, Atropia, a film based on military training camps in the American desert that simulated war zones in Iraq.
Written and directed by Gates in her feature-length debut and starring Alia Shawkat alongside Callum Turner, Zahra Alzubaidi, Tim Heidecker and Chloë Sevigny, Atropia follows an aspiring actress (Shawkat) working for a military role-playing facility.
In one swoop, Atropia satirizes the military, the media and Hollywood, and while the film has comedy at its core,…