Holiday dinner set in deeply divided America
For Ike Barinholtz, who wrote, directed and stars in Friday’s comedic, violent “The Oath,” it all began with a holiday dinner.
“I got the idea after the 2016 election at Thanksgiving. My mom and brother got into this big argument — and we all voted for the same person!
“Then I started talking to other friends,” Barinholtz, 41, said, “and I knew the landscape of the American holiday table had changed.”
“The Oath” is set in an imagined America where an unseen president asks citizens to take a Patriot’s Oath. When some decline, they are attacked or, worse, disappear.
For their Thanksgiving weekend with his parents, brother and his brother’s current girlfriend, Chris (Barinholtz) and wife Kai (Tiffany Haddish) find a warlike atmosphere with relatives taking sides.
When two Citizen Patrol Unit volunteers arrive to interrogate Chris, a nonsigner, a stand-off that could easily turn murderous ensues.
“Oath” leaps into an aggressively physical, perhaps homicidal, living room melee with Billy Magnussen’s Agent Mason as one scary deranged CPU dude.
“Initially Mason was an older, craggy guy in his late 50s or so,” Barinholtz began.
“Then after I saw Charlottesville (where white nationalists attacked a peace march), it struck me how young they all were. I was a huge fan of Billy’s back from ‘Boardwalk Empire’ but I was not prepared for what he did with this disturbing haircut and tight moustache. He scares the hell out of you.”
Casting Haddish? “I saw Tiffany in ‘Keanu’ and was really taken with her, so real and interesting.
“I said to myself, I’d love to be married to her one day — and the center of the story is this husband and wife. I sent her the script the weekend after ‘Girls Trip’ came out.
“I didn’t think she’d even read it, but she called and said, ‘I’ve never seen this movie, I’ll do it.’
“But I was worried. After her big hit, when this ‘bigger better’ offer came they bail — and she didn’t bail.”
Who does Barinholtz sees as the audience for “The Oath”?
“People who regardless of political affiliation or who they like or don’t like, they feel the culture has become absurd.
“I think in absurd times the best thing to do is laugh, maybe feel a little scared. I want people to have a good time.”