American Pastoral

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.

American Pastoral was based on Pulitzer Prize winning author Philip Roth's novel. The movie is directed by Ewan McGregor, he was also the main character who marries Jennifer Connelly who was the beauty queen of her state. Their daughter who was played by Dakota Fanning joins the turmoil of 1960's America and disappears from society after a few bombings that killed a group of people. Fanning goes missing most of her life and Ewan never gives up on her. I never knew what Pastoral means but it's meaning has to do with farming to grazing of sheep but in church it means concerning or appropriate to the giving of spiritual guidance. The family's life falls apart as each parent falls into emotional struggle to keep their sanity. Peter Riegert acts as Ewan's rough around the edges Jewish father while David Strathairn narrates the film. Overall it was a dark emotionally sad movie, good to watch once but don't think I would watch it again.

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.

This film tells the story of a middle class family in the a United States of America in the sixties, when there were political turmoil and social unrests. A teenage girl turns radical, leaving behind a trail of destruction and regret.

I often have not liked films that are directed by actors or actresses. Hence, I have not expected "American Pastoral" to be so engaging. The interpersonal dynamics in the film are closing and convincing. I five myself trying to interpret how and why the girl turns out the way she dies. It is also a great plot point that the psychiatrist does know her stuff, and sees what is happening before other people figure it out. The contrasts between the reactions of the father and the mother after the tragedy, and also the contrasts between the speed of the subsequent recovery are astounding. I think this film is an engaging and thought provoking drama. I enjoyed it.

I really like the Fanning sisters so I'll basically watch anything with them. I was also curious about this film because its the directional debut of Ewan McGregor. I went in blind not knowing what the film would bring but it seemed to have a strong cast, and for the little buzz it generated it remained something that I really wanted to check out. I think its a solid debut for McGregor as a filmmaker but can't escape being too dull at times.

The film is based on a novel about a family with a daughter with a speech impediment. She witnesses a traumatic scene of the infamous monk setting himself on fire in television. After this childhood incident Merry (Fanning's character) becomes a radical opponent of war. She starts out vehemently opposing Lyndon Johnson and the war efforts but eventually becomes the culprit in a murder after a bomb goes off. Swede (Ewan McGregor) spends most of the film trying to find his estranged daughter and find out why she is the way she is.

I think the film has strong performances as you would expect from the cast of this caliber. You immediately see the disenchantment of youth in Fanning's character and understand how radical she is in her anti-war stance. Her pained relationship with her mother is stated quite well, and the uncomfortably in it drives her mother mad. I had no problems with the character interactions, however the film cannot escape feeling dull and prolonged. You don't care enough to follow Swede as he tries to find his daughter, and when you finally find her, its just very underwhelming.

Its hard to care for Fanning's character as she's unlikable from the get go. The film doesn't offer much else outside of a quest for a character you'd rather remain lost. The method of storytelling does not always prosper as it goes through periods of stalling and the payoff isn't really entertaining. It gets very lost in an antiwar shuffle and remains shallow despite trying to go deep. I'd say its exciting to see McGregor get behind the camera but his first adaptation does not have enough life.

6/10