Now coming on March 13th, “The Hunt” is a satire film that has already attracted national attention. Advertisements have called it  “the most talked about movie of the year that no one has seen”, due to it being once shelved indefinitely by Universal studios after its first announcement caused political backlash, even drawing scrutiny from the President of the United States, who tweeted, “Liberal Hollywood is Racist at the highest level”.

What makes this movie so unusual, and possibly incendiary? Like always, it comes down to politics.

“The Hunt” is loosely based on the 1924 novel “The Most Dangerous Game”. The plot revolves around a group of unsuspecting people who are kidnapped, and wake up in a clearing with no knowledge of how or why they are there. They soon realize they are there to be hunted for sport by a class of elites to which they band together and fight back. This lays the framework for the film. However, the reaction in the country upon hearing the plot was less than optimistic.

For many Republicans and right-wing Americans, the concept of Americans, who appear to share similar beliefs, being hunted by liberals, hits way too close to current reality. One of the characters in an advertisement for the film said, “Every year these liberal elites kidnap a bunch of normal folks like us, and hunt us for sport”.

The movie mirrors the current state of fear in the country, with political divisiveness becoming an increasing issue. One scene in the movie shows one, yet unnamed, elite saying, “There’s nothing better than going to the manor, and slaughtering a dozen deplorables”.

Needless to say, this kind of language does nothing to help ease people’s minds. ‘Deplorable’, referring to those who support President Trump, first coined by Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. It has been used by some as a derogatory slur against right-wing, blue-collar Americans.

The directors and cast have made the point of saying the film is not meant to be divisive; the opposite is true. It is supposed to have a shock value to show us how divided we are, and help us regain a sense of unity. What is yet to be seen is how the country will react when the film premieres. The reason that the film drew so much immediate criticism is that it struck a nerve in the populace. It may be hard to believe, but those, “Deplorables” in the film have real life counterparts in the nation today. For them, the fear of being oppressed by liberal elites, even to the extremes shown in the film, is very real, and palpable.

Will “The Hunt” be a success? It depends on the state of the nation. Are we ready for a film to highlight our intense political divide and put on screen our deeper fears? It’s a satire, so it should do just that. Will the country be able to grapple with the dramatic plot that is sure to arise? The only way to know is to see what happens when “The Hunt” hits the screen.