The Oath is a holiday political horror movie. The premise is that every citizen has until Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, to swear an oath to the President, who is a fictional character, and the government reassures the people that there will be no negative consequences for not taking the oath, only perks for those who do. People who initially oppose the oath begin to feel pressure to take it because of news reports of people being disappeared or fear of losing their job. It stars the director and writer, Ike Barinholtz, who plays Chris, a father and husband obsessed with the news and the increase of fascism in the US, but has promised not to be divisive when his family visits for Thanksgiving.
The Oath sounds a bit stiff on paper, and because Tiffany Haddish, a national treasure, is in so many movies, it is easy to think that you have already heard about or seen the preview. I decided to watch the preview and was immediately sold. I have a weakness for Thanksgiving movies plus The Oath is germane to our current political climate while giving me a secular Mark of the Beast to appeal to the odd combo of my fundamentalist upbringing and my progressive values.
I am unfamiliar with his work, but Barinholtz’s directorial debut is a strong one that gets funnier as it unfolds. The movie is like a pressure cooker as people try to act normal when suddenly an explosion erupts at the margins but draws closer and closer to home. When and how will it hit home? There are plenty of tension points around the house. Will it be the laconic dad or the normative masculine brother, who is played by Barinholtz’s real life brother? The brother’s girlfriend appears to be an online troll and the most likely suspect. I won’t ruin how the proverbial crap will hit the fan, but when it does, it suddenly switches from the theoretical to a crime thriller comedy of errors. I didn’t necessarily see it coming, but I was thinking that the argument at Thanksgiving dinner could not be it and was expecting that revelation.
As someone who has consistently not been a fan of Very Bad Things, Straw Dogs or Rough Night, I was surprised at how funny I thought the turn of events were. The brief conversation with the lawyer grounded it in reality. John Cho and Billy Magnussen really nail the final act of The Oath. Cho has great facial comedic timing combined with his understated, smooth demeanor. Magnussen was in Birth of the Dragon, which was so dreadful that it is the kind of movie that can ruin careers even though he wasn’t the reason that the story was garbage. Magnussen has been steadily doing good work in small roles in movies such as The Big Short and Ingrid Goes West. He has presence and the ability to change the tone of a movie in a second. He was unrecognizable in this one.
The Oath has a great ensemble cast. New Girl’s Max Greenfield appears early as a turncoat friend. I don’t know Meredith Hagner, but by the end of the movie, she had me howling with laughter at her commentary during the situation in spite of playing a hateful character. Nora Dunn’s resume just has one word: mom, but she still kills. Transparent’s Jay Duplass appears briefly. Carrie Brownstein exponentially increased the hilarity.
I saw complaints that Haddish wasn’t given enough to do as the simple housewife. She was an executive producer in The Oath. She wasn’t a victim in this process. As a black woman, seeing the image of a black woman as a wife and mother who should be protected by anyone, but especially a white man, is revolutionary. If a white woman was in that role, I would concur that the role was trite, but I know that while Haddish was not singing my song, she was singing the song of a lot of black women who take pride in being a housewife when we have been forced by either slavery or financial necessity to take care of other people’s families and needs before their own. Plus Haddish’s character was not just some submissive, meek housewife, and Barinholtz and Haddish were completely believable as a couple.
Ultimately The Oath is more optimistic about this country’s future than I am, especially regarding the family. There is an element of truth to the ending. The ills of the country reside in the hands of people, who, if they can be reminded of who they are, can be shaken out of their fever dream and see reason, but that is a pretty big if. Also the catalyst for this solution in our timeline would not actually solve anything because the problem is bigger than one person.
The Oath does nail how Americans want normalcy and comfort and would seize on that catalyst as a way to return back to normal even though none of the underlying problems that created the crisis were resolved. We would like to believe that one man is the problem, but he isn’t. I’m also fascinated by the idea of what triggers which groups. Right wing militiamen and conservatives are always supposed to be suspicious of government tyranny and allegedly highly trained, but they aren’t triggered now. Left wing terrorism is prevalent in the media, but not as prevalent in reality. So liberals and left wing radicals may be triggered, but don’t have the training. I am a lawyer. I was brought up to believe in the rule of law, and that is who I still am, which I contemplated glumly as Russian subs patrolled coasts within my vicinity. People of a certain age don’t just suddenly change because circumstances have. Even if you were brought up to believe that violence is an acceptable solution and taught how to fight, government action would not trigger you, but individual disrespect within your community would. How did 1776 really happen? People aren’t that different, which is why the emergence of movies such as The Oath, Bushwick and The Purge franchise are intriguing. They are trying to solve a problem already mulled over in Christian end times films—what does resistance look like in the face of an unstoppable government. Before these ideas only sparked the imagination of Christian fundamentalists and conservatives, but they resonate in the collective imagination of the nation. What is more important: comfort or your eternal soul?
The Oath ultimately flinches from answering this question. Chris, an atheist, is seen as a zealot on the other end of the spectrum whose intolerance is systemic of the fever dream, not a hero whom viewers should emulate. I wasn’t surprised by how he initially backs down from his rhetoric to comfort those who compromise because of his love for them. I think that a movie such as The Oath is actually more accurate than Christian apocalypse movies. We care more about making people not feel guilty for compromising with evil than actually doing evil. While it is far from a perfect movie, it made me think and laugh out loud more as it unfolded. I would highly recommend that you see it in theaters with an audience.