American Pastoral

"Why does everyone say she did it when she couldn't have done it? She's been tricked and abducted." Seymour (McGregor) was an All-American sports star that was the most popular kid in college. He married a beauty queen and has the perfect life. They are ecstatic when their daughter Merry (Fanning) is born. Little by little Merry becomes more and more radical and passionate about the polarizing politics of the 60's. After the local post office is blown up and someone winds up dead Merry is the lone suspect. Now, Seymour puts his life on hold to find Merry and discover the truth. This is a very very good move, but it is not for everyone. The pacing is just in that awkward spot where if you are interested in the movie you will stick with it and enjoy the events. If you are on the fence the pacing will be just slow enough that many may bail on this. As for the movie itself, its very artsy and deep and important. This is a great character study and features the best acting of McGregor's career. The movie is dark, very allegorical and deserves a bigger audience than it will get. Overall, a very deep and thought provoking movie that will either be liked or shut off before its finished, depending on the person. I give this a high B.

Greetings again from the darkness. Tackling one of the great American novels is a difficult challenge for even the most seasoned film directors … and a dubious undertaking (at best) for a first-timer. Philip Roth won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1997 novel "American Pastoral", and there have been rumblings of a Hollywood production for more than a decade. It's somewhat surprising that the screen version is directed by first time director Ewan McGregor … with the Scottish actor also taking on the lead role of local Jersey boy and sports hero Seymour "Swede" Levov.

The story examines the cracks behind the façade of a seemingly perfect family … the sports hero marrying the beauty queen. Of course, there is always more going on within a family than most care to admit (at least that was the case in the days prior to Facebook). There's an early scene where Swede has introduced Dawn (Jennifer Connelly) to his father (Peter Riegert), and the philosophical and religious differences perfectly capture the changing times and mores from one generation to the next. Never has this been more true than the late 1960's and early 1970's … political and social upheaval were daily occurrences – and sometimes quite violent.

The first half of the movie is exceptionally well done and captures the essence of why the second half feels like a total decimation of everything Swede thought he had. He and Dawn's daughter Merry is beautiful and feisty and stutters … something that only enhances the anger she expresses and anguish she causes for her parents. Her innocent questions as a young child evolve into radical political beliefs and affiliations as she grows up.

Merry (ironically named) is by far the most interesting character in the story, but with the focus on Swede, Dakota Fanning only has brief moments that are worthy of her talent, and Dawn has only a few emotional moments that allow Ms. Connelly to flash the acting depth she hasn't shown in years. So much time and attention is devoted to Swede that the second half is a bit of a letdown and leaves too many details and questions unanswered.

John Romano's (The Lincoln Lawyer) adaptation of the American classic took a different direction than we might have preferred, but it's a thankless job since so many have considered this as unfilmable. McGregor shows a good eye as a director, though it's obvious this material needed a more experienced filmmaker at the helm. The great Alexandre Desplat provides a classy score … the piano pieces are especially well suited. Supporting work is solid from David Strathairn as narrator Nathan Zuckerman, Rupert Evans as Swede's brother, Molly Parker as Merry's therapist, Uzo Aduba as Swede's employee, and Valorie Curry as a misguided revolutionary. It's a reminder that family dynamics may be the most complex organism, and when blended with the volatile times of the Vietnam War, a generational gap should be expected … even if it's difficult and emotional to accept.

'I was never more wrong about anyone in my life.'

Philip Roth's superb book has passages of language that crystallizes our thinking, our memories, our association with life. In this cinematic transformation the words are placed in the utterances by Nathan Zuckerman, sort of an Everyman as he states in the opening of the film – 'Let's remember the energy. America had won the war. The depression was over. Sacrifice was over. The upsurge of life was contagious. We celebrated a moment of collective inebriation that we would never know again. Nothing like it in all the years that followed from our childhood until tonight, the 45th reunion of our high school class…30 or 40, a gathering of my old classmates would have been exactly the kind of thing I'd have kept my nose out of. But at 62, I found myself drawn to it as if in the crowd of half-remembered faces I'd be closer to the mystery at the heart of things, a magic trick that turned time past into time present'. John Romano adapted Roth's novel American PASTORAL for the screen. Ethan McGregor directs. We all reflect on a time that somehow, though placed in the 1960's resistance against the Vietnam War, is terrifyingly familiar with the mood of the nation at present, again at resistance rallies – and that is the reason it works so well.

Seymour 'Swede' Levov (Ewan McGregor) was from the Jewish community and is an All- American sports star in high school. He had everything an American idol can dream of - a the tall muscular young man and high school star athlete but he married a Catholic beauty queen named Dawn (Jennifer Connelly) against his father's (Peter Riegert) advice. Swede later became the successful manager of the glove factory his father had founded, which allowed him to live with his wife in a beautiful house in the New Jersey countryside. Well-mannered, always bright, smiling and positive, conservative but with a liberal edge, what bad could ever happen to him? The couple's stuttering daughter Merry (Hannah Nordberg then Dakota Fanning) is their pride and joy until she steps into the 1960s and becomes an antiwar activist, responsible for bombing a little station, killing the owner in what is a senseless and horrifying change in life direction. Merry leaves home and the rest of the film is a father's search for peace with his distraught wife and community while he ceaselessly searches for his renegade daughter.

A difficult film to watch, just as the book was challenging to read. But somehow the mirror it holds up to society as we are currently living it makes the disturbing experience all the more poignant.

American Pastoral a fine flashback look at the 60s and how the events of the day affected one upper middle class family. The father is Ewan MacGregor the star athlete who married teen beauty queen Jennifer Connelly and looked like they were heading for the golden future. They're from Newark and MacGregor now manages the family business which is a leather goods factory in Newark. But they move out to the suburbs of Morris County.

First off it's a mixed marriage with Jewish MacGregory marrying a Shiksa in Connelly. They have one child a daughter Dakota Fanning who growing up in the 60s sees what's going on around her and gets into some truly radical politics. Her parents are traditional liberal Democrats.

Something she does makes her a fugitive. The rest of the film is MacGregor and Connelly's agonized family traditions are blown apart. They want to understand their child and want her back. But that can never be.

This film is adapted from a Philip Roth novel and Roth drew his characters well as this was an era he and I both grew up in.

Besides the main characters I would single out Peter Riegert's performance as MacGregor's father and Valerie Curry who has embraced totally Weatherman style radicalism. Her scenes with MacGregor who is trying to find his fugitive daughter just crackle with intensity.

A real portrait of an era in America we're still trying to understand.

The novel on which this film was based won a Pulitzer Prize. Yet the film has a 2.8/10 on Rotten Tomatoes and was panned by all the major critics.

The main issue, is that while Dakota Fanning is a talented actor, the screenplay writing of her part in the film really fails.

In the novel she is a psychopath murdering innocent people in involved with people who think Stalin was a good guy. She is literally the equivalent of a neo-Nazi terrorist but on the extreme left. The film just doesn't delve into that and fails completely as a result. Some of the commentary on this review section shows that people who have not read the novel completely misunderstand this film, given the source material is about the destruction the daughter wreaks on her family and others.

Skip the film and give the novel a read.