American Pastoral Review: Mc. Gregor Whiffs on Directorial Debut. American Pastoral opens this Friday in limited release. I think he’s a charming presence in films and despite his longevity in the industry (he’s been a star since 1. Trainspotting), he’s frequently underrated despite his range and versatility (he has no Oscar nominations and can only get lead roles in independent films).
I hoped his directorial debut, American Pastoral, might not only allow him to show another dimension to his acting, but reveal a promising new career avenue. Sadly, Mc. Gregor’s adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel does neither.
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Instead, it’s a tedious, uninspired picture that could have worked if it had painted its hapless protagonist as an individual rather than an everyman. Mc. Gregor swings for the fences in his portrayal of an anguished father, but the only thing he hits is an obnoxious metaphor about how the 6.
America. The film uses a framing device where writer Nathan Zuckerman (David Strathairn) is attending his high school reunion and bumps into his old friend Jerry Levov (Rupert Evans). He learns that Jerry’s brother, Seymour “Swede” Levov (Mc. Gregor) has recently passed away. Nathan admits he was out of the country for most of the 6. America. We then flashback to where Swede and his wife Dawn (Jennifer Connelly) raise their daughter Merry (Hannah Nordberg) on an idyllic farm. However, when Merry becomes a rebellious teenager (Dakota Fanning), she’s suspected of blowing up the local post office and goes on the run. Swede continues to hunt for his daughter, but the damage is done and his perfect life begins to crumble.
Image via Lionsgate. If American Pastoral didn’t have its framing device and was just a story about a man trying to find his estranged daughter, it would work slightly better. The characters would still be broadly drawn, but at least Swede could stand in as an individual undergoing a personal crisis rather than an exemplar for America. As an individual, he’s a hurt parent who can’t give up on his wayward child. That may not carry any lofty subtext, but it’s a universal relationship and it’s where Mc.
Gregor invests the film’s emotional energy. Unfortunately, the framing device sets up Swede as America’s golden boy. He’s a soldier (although one who came in at the tail- end of the war so he’s not scarred by PTSD; all of the glory, none of the scars!). He’s a proud businessman whose workforce is 8. African- American.
He’s got the dream life of the upper middle class that was promised to every single American after World War II. And then his lefty daughter has to go and mess it all up.
American Pastoral – In Select Theaters October 21 Starring Ewan McGregor, Jennifer Connelly, Dakota Fanning, Uzo Aduba and David Strathairn #. Read Matt Goldberg's American Pastoral review; Ewan McGregor directs and co-stars alongside Jennifer Connelly, Dakota Fanning, and Uzo Aduba. Azaroak 5 de noviembre. Agentes de pastoral de Iniciaci.
Ewan McGregor directs and stars in American Pastoral, a movie adapted from Philip Roth's novel. It opens at the Toronto Film Festival. American Pastoral Official Trailer #1 (2016) - Ewan McGregor, Jennifer Connelly Movie HD Subscribe to TRAILERS: http:// Subscribe to COMING. American Pastoral is a Philip Roth novel published in 1997 concerning Seymour 'Swede' Levov, a successful Jewish American businessman and former high school star. AMERICAN PASTORAL follows Seymour 'Swede' Levov, a legendary high school athlete, who grows up to marry a former beauty queen and inherits his father's business.
Image via Lionsgate. Swede doesn’t get painted as a person. He doesn’t have weaknesses.
His biggest mistake is that he loves his daughter too much. He doesn’t give into temptation.
He’s basically what white Americans think of when they look back at “better days” because for a white, heterosexual family man like Swede, the postwar 1. Swede’s Jewishness never seems to have any negative impact on his life, and it’s so rarely noted that he may as well be secular). Never mind that anyone who wasn’t a white, heterosexual male probably had a slightly rougher go of things.
And anyone who comes to mess up Swede’s perfect existence is the enemy. In this case, it’s the radical left as represented by ne’er- do- well Merry. If Swede is the perfect American, then his wife and daughter are the ones who ruin everything.
One day, Merry is a sweet, innocent girl (with the exception of one scene where she tries to seduce her father, a sloppy attempt at foreshadowing how she’ll come to ruin his life) and then we cut forward and she’s an angry radical. She’s now the poster child for how the 6.
America, and that our downfall didn’t come from globalization or supply- side economics or any number of factors that shape a rich and diverse nation. It was those damn radical leftists and weak- willed women like Dawn who ran from their problems and hid away in cosmetic surgery. O, woe to the noble American white man. O, woe to the Swede. Image via TIFFIt’s not that Mc.
Gregor seems to actively be pushing a political agenda as much as it’s a natural result of the framing device. Mc. Gregor is far more invested in the emotional stakes, but because the framing device recasts the characters as symbols, their emotional journey matters less than what those symbols represent.
Mc. Gregor wants to give his fellow actors room to shine, but it all plays as melodrama rather than emotions from real people. The tenor of American Pastoral makes it seem like Mc. Gregor was drawn to the story about a family man whose life was ripped apart by a love for his daughter. In more confident, experienced hands, that could have been enough for a strong picture, and it seems like that’s the picture Mc.
Gregor thought he made—a heartbreaking story of a father unable to save his child from her own bad decisions. But by trying to speak to something larger about American history, American Pastoral trips over its own words and spouts nonsense.
American Pastoral (Pastoral americana) - Pel. Pero cuando la adolescente hija de la pareja, Merry Levov, comete un violento acto de terrorismo pol.
De esta forma, Levov emprender. Pero lo que descubrir.
Este es el debut en la direcci. Este drama norteamericano basado en la novela hom.