WINONA RYDER: (As Evelyn Finkel) When he came out against the Jews in the Des Moines speech, I was outraged. And out on a dinner date, as the rabbi pours Evelyn some wine and she starts talking about Lindbergh, their dynamic shifts very subtly into a more intense gear. The rabbi is played by the great character actor John Turturro. Eventually, Evelyn begins dating a rabbi who has political ties to Lindbergh. Both of those actors are standouts here, as well. The Levins have two young sons, Sandy and Phillip, and an extended family that includes the father's nephew Alvin, played by Anthony Boyle, and the mother's sister Evelyn, played by Winona Ryder. Herman and Elizabeth Levin are played by Morgan Spector and Zoe Kazan, who give equally shaded and multilayered performances. For HBO's version, the family is called the Levins of Newark, N.J. There's a new day.īIANCULLI: In the novel, Philip Roth framed his story by looking at one Jewish family, the Roths, with himself, young Philip Roth, as the protagonist. From the plains to the hill, from the farm to the mill, all the road is open again. UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (As characters, singing) There's a new day in view. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA")
The underlying threat is constant and more and more ominous.
The opening credits begin with music of hope and promise, but they're paired with images of increasing intolerance and oppression. "The Plot Against America" imagines an alternate history of the '40s in which celebrity daredevil pilot Charles Lindbergh is elected president and slowly but very surely pushes his isolationist and anti-Semitic views. Terry spoke with Philip Roth in 2004 about his novel "The Plot Against America." Before we get to that conversation, let's begin with a look at the new TV adaptation of Roth's novel, published that same year. The novel takes off from this premise - what if the famous aviator Charles Lindbergh was the Republican Party's nominee for President in 1940, and he defeated FDR? And what if President Lindbergh, a Nazi sympathizer, made pacts with Germany and Japan, kept America out of the war and instituted policies in America to relocate Jewish families to the heartland to encourage them to assimilate? Although the historical premise is fiction, the main character in the book is the 9-year-old Philip Roth. On Monday, HBO premieres the newest miniseries from David Simon, creator of "The Wire." It's called "The Plot Against America." And the six-part limited series adapted by Simon and his "Wire" colleague Ed Burns is based on the acclaimed book by Philip Roth. I'm TV critic David Bianculli, sitting in for Terry Gross.
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