The Plot Against America
2020
🎯 Verdict
✍️ Full Review
Power moves through the pettiest but shiny gold corridors of the brain… For that friend of mine who proffers always to leave politics out of everything and I often retort show me a thing that's not under the ambit of politics. Philip Roth's alternate history period piece adapted into this faithful adaptation by David Simon and Ed Burns does a pretty fair job of painting a picture of how easy it could be for a sane society to backslide lockstep into an authoritarian nightmare and what an American version of history might have looked like leading up to something along the line of Kristallnacht. Instead of making it leaned into a grand global scheme of things which was pretty apparent in this case or doing a The Man In The High Castle routine, The Plot Against America shows it through the eyes of different members of the same family; and it's especially and effectively more evocative when the storylines unravelled in front of the two little kids, from small all the way to seismic socio-political upheavals. Many may think the political discussions are a little too heavy-handed and shoehorned every chance the creators could get in each of the episodes, yet, I didn't mind that at all. Others may think the viewpoints of the kids in particular are a refreshing idea, the teenage kid as the poster boy of assimilation which is just capitulation from top to bottom in the form of train 'em while they're young and the younger cute one at an impressionable age trying to make sense of their predicaments, soaking it all in. I liked both of those aspects of this show. As a political drama/thriller, The Plot Against America quite pragmatically reflects how unbelievably fragile the long-established national character of one of strongest democracies can be when otherwise good-natured people start participating in faction building and remain oblivious to the brazen attempts of deteriorating rights in increments. P.S.- The ironic funny connection here is this whole thing rings too close to the great Elia Kazan during the Red Scare and the period of McCarthyism. Having said that, Zoe Kazan was excellent in this. Too bad and what a shame that the most persecuted religious community all across the globe throughout time immemorial is currently being accused of the very same things due to some myopic bloodthirsty genocidal maniacs in power.