New film “The Oath” shows how politics can ruin a family’s festivities. |
“THE OATH” TAKES A CANDID LOOK AT HOW POLITICS CAN CREATE A DIVISIVE ATMOSPHERE DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON.
The holiday season is coming up on us faster than a speeder on I-45, and that means one thing: healthy helpings of turkey, pie and overheated politics at dinner tables all across America.
While this has long been the case, this year’s gatherings — mirroring the tribal times in which we live — threaten to be more divisive than ever. While that’s bad news for those who want to crawl into the new year with their spirits and Facebook friends list intact, it’s good news for actor/comedian Ike Barinholtz, whose darkly acidic sociopolitical comedy, “The Oath,” in which he stars with Tiffany Haddish and John Cho, gleefully taps into the frustrations and fireworks of a family holiday overwhelmed by whatever is coming out of Washington.
Set in an America that’s only slightly more dystopic than our own, “The Oath,” opening Friday, envisions a country in which the government decides that every citizen should sign a loyalty oath, with the day after Thanksgiving as the deadline. Now, no one has to sign, but if you don’t, you might just get a friendly visit from a newly formed security force.
Barinholtz is Chris, an overbearing and self-righteously liberal, cable-TV news junkie who’s outraged that so many of his friends and family, liberal and conservative alike, have chosen the path of least resistance and signed the oath. Barinholtz’s real-life brother, Jon, plays Chris’ conservative brother, Pat, who, along with his girlfriend, gladly signed the oath and don’t see what all the fuss is about. Haddish is Kai, Chris’ more even-keeled wife, who just wants to get through Thanksgiving without the carving knife being used for more than turkey slices.
“The Oath,” Barinholtz’s directorial debut, may be speculative, comedic fiction but it’s rooted in a serious reality everyone can recognize. In fact, it was inspired by a Thanksgiving dinner at the Barinholtz household in 2016, after the election of President Donald Trump.
“I think a lot of people were kind of, on both sides, shocked,” Barinholtz says during an interview at a downtown Houston hotel. “My mother, my brother and I got in this pretty heated argument. … We were going back and forth, and it just kind of struck me that night as I was in bed, I was like, ‘How did that happen? We all voted for the same person.’ Then, as I woke up the next day, I just thought about that kind of claustrophobic feeling of everyone being in the house with this kind of looming political crisis that’s stressing everyone out.”
But Barinholtz, 41, whose best known as an actor in such films as “Blockers” and “Neighbors” as well as the TV series “The Mindy Project,” thinks it’s a mistake to see “The Oath” strictly in political terms. “I really don’t look at this as a political movie per se,” he says. “I really look at it as a family movie, and an American movie. It’s really about politics and the news cycle, how people react to it. And how a lot of otherwise smart, rational people’s brains break.”
That’s why he made the movie about a thing — the oath — as opposed to a person whom audiences might correlate to a real-world individual. “If you remove this person, and it’s more of this kind of concept, I think it’s a little more comfortable for the audiences,” he says.
He also says he didn’t want to simply lionize liberals and demonize conservatives. “My
character in the movie is the most liberal character (and) he’s the most insufferable jerk. He just exhibits nothing but bad behavior and poor judgment.
“The worst version of this movie is like a liberal fantasy, where my character is so altruistic and noble, and his heart is in the right place, and he’s going to fight the idiots. That’s the movie that very few people want to see. I don’t want to see that movie,” continues Barinholtz. “I want to see a movie with deeply flawed people on both sides.”
Barinholtz says he was encouraged when a woman, who identified as conservative, came up to him after an Austin screening. “She said, ‘I really enjoyed your film’ and ‘Didn’t you feel the conservative characters were over the top?’ I said, ‘I do, but I want to show this kind of heightened feel.’ She came back about 20 minutes later and said, ‘I really did love the movie.’ ”
It turned out she said she worked for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. “She’s like, ‘I’m going to try to get people from the office to come,’ ” Barinholtz says.
From politics to comedy
As a kid growing up in Chicago, Barinholtz briefly thought about getting involved in politics himself.
“My dad was kind of friendly with some local Chicago politicians, most of whom I’m sure are in prison right now,” he says with a laugh. “I remember being very taken not just by the fun aspect of it — there’s free doughnuts and stuff — but, at least from my young, naive point of view, there was this really amazing thing happening where someone who really cares is talking to someone who needs help. There was something about that that seemed very noble to me. I liked watching Ronald Reagan and really liked watching Bill Clinton.”
But, once in college and after, he drifted into acting and comedy, taking classes at famed Second City. In Amsterdam, he became part of the Boom Chicago troupe that also included comedians Jordan Peele and Joshua Meyers, all of whom would go on to be part of the “Mad TV” cast.
After several years on “Mad TV,” Barinholtz left the show but continued working in TV (actor, writer and story editor on “The Mindy Project”) while also expanding into film acting. Directing is the next step.
“I had directed some episodes of ‘The Mindy Project,’ so I knew what was involved and I knew the responsibility,” he says of making “The Oath.” “It’s just much bigger for a movie.”
He was tossing around another idea for his debut film but once he stumbled upon the concept for “The Oath,” he couldn’t resist. “There’s not a lot of Thanksgiving movies, so I knew that worked … (And) I knew I wanted to direct something a little bit smaller,” he says, referring to the fact that “The Oath” largely takes place inside a house. “I knew right away that it was something I could manage and take on.”
Fast filmmaking
“The Oath” turns out not to just be timely because of Thanksgiving but because of the midterm elections on Nov. 6. That meant a quick turnaround.
“Yeah, we knew that we wanted it to come out as soon as possible,” Barinholtz says.
Peele had recommended the script to co-producer Raymond Mansfield (“Get Out,” “BlacKkKlansman”) who liked it but was adamant that the film get underway immediately.
“We got it, we read it and instantaneously said we’ll do this as long as you want to get started on this right now,” says Mansfield by phone. “This has to be made right now. He said, ‘I’m still wrapping the ‘Mindy’ show.’ We said, ‘If you were willing to start preproduction the day after that (show) wraps, we’ll greenlight it right now.’ ”
“We shot it last November, December and then you have the five, sixmonth post (editing) process,” says Barinholtz. “Now, we’ve got arguably the biggest election of our lifetimes coming up, and I know people are going to be inundated with politics. But this is a chance to come and laugh at it.
“You get to watch that family break down — and it’s not your family — so it’s fun.”