CERT: 12A / WHERE TO WATCH: HBO MAX, SELECT CINEMAS
In An American Pickle, Seth Rogen stars as a modern-day Brooklyn app developer, Ben Greenbaum, as well as his great-grandfather, Herschel, who was brined for a century in a pickle vat. It’s a film that walks the fine line between goofy fish-out-of-water comedy – a recurring gag sees seltzer water as being the height of fancy for Herschel – and emotional family drama. The fact that director Brandon Trost’s film, from writer Simon Rich’s script, doesn’t manage to reconcile the two in any meaningful way makes for a film that feels like an epic, despite clocking in at a clean 90 minutes.
The opening scenes – where Herschel is introduced, and meets his love, Sarah (Sarah Snook), work the strongest, because it’s all physical comedy and Borscht-belt jokes about Cossacks. A little cutesy, perhaps, but it’s certainly better than when the film flashes forward to modern day. After a solid decade’s worth of mustache jokes, the gags about Brooklyn hipsters seem horribly dated at this point.
The two Rogens are a little opposite, but the actor’s jocular everyman repeatedly comes through far too strongly in his portrayal of Herschel to differentiate between him and Ben. It doesn’t help that An American Pickle is yet another film about an aimless young man with no strong sense of self. Watching the movie, it’s all too familiar. While it looks lovely, An American Pickle is ultimately out of step with the times in which it finds itself.
