If you’re a fan of horrific alternate histories that are actually about our horrific contemporary reality, then HBO has some new content for you. The premium cabler is adapting Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America novel, which imagines what would have happened if Charles Lindbergh had run for and been elected into the presidency during World War II, spurring on the rise of anti-Semitism and fascism in the country.
HBO just dropped the trailer, which stars David Krumholtz, Zoe Kazan, John Turturro, Morgan Spector, and Winona Ryder as working-class Jewish people living in New Jersey as the American political situation takes a turn deeper into hate, fear, and racism. The adaptation comes from The Wire‘s David Simon and Ed Burns, so it’s sure to be something deeply affecting and not at all about the America of today.
The Plot Against America Trailer
Check out the trailer below…
The Plot Against America Release Date
The Plot Against America miniseries will run for six episodes and is set to premiere on Monday, March 16th at 9pm ET. Here’s the full official synopsis:
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“A working-class Jewish family in New Jersey watches the political rise of aviator-hero and xenophobic populist Charles Lindbergh, as he becomes president and turns the nation toward fascism. This six-part re-imagining of history is based on the Philip Roth novel of the same name.”
The Plot Against America Cast
Winona Ryder stars as Evelyn Finkel. “Evelyn is unmarried, her plans arrested by 10 years of caring for her infirm mother, and is hungry to find her own place in life. The sudden attentions of a key Lindbergh supporter — the politically ascendant clergyman, Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf — are exhilarating and transformational for her.”
Zoe Kazan stars as Elizabeth “Bess” Levin, Evelyn’s younger sister. She is described as “an insightful mother and homemaker, who fears for the future as she tries to protect her family from the escalating political climate and plan a possible escape for the forces that seem to be threatening her world.”
Next up we have Morgan Spector as Herman Levin, ”the proud and opinionated father, who works as an insurance agent and tries to maintain normalcy in the life of his family and friends even as his country seems to be slipping into fascism, anti-Semitism and xenophobic isolationism.”
Anthony Boyle (aka Scoripus Malfoy!) stars as Alvin Levin, “the angry and intelligent orphaned nephew to Herman. He allows political differences with his family, personal grudges and resentments, and his own abhorrence of hypocrisy and cant to drive him from street crime to the battlefields of Europe and back.”
Azhy Robertson is Philip Levin, “the youngest of the Levin family. Philip copes with his own innocent curiosity and growing anxiety in a world that seems to be collapsing around him, both at home and in the streets.” 🙁
Caleb Malis will appear as Sandy Levin, “the Levin’s artistic teenage son, who rebels against his family and his father in particular as his adolescence becomes entangled with his growing admiration for Lindbergh — a stance encouraged by his beloved Aunt Evelyn’s guidance.”
John Turturro is in the cast as Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf, ”a conservative rabbi and a transplant from Charleston, S.C. where he gained his first synagogue pulpit and became a widower with the death of his affluent wife. Bengelsdorf seizes the reins of history to become a key figure in the emergent Lindbergh administration — despite growing opposition within the Jewish community as a whole.”
More news about The Plot Against America as we get it.