'An American Pickle'

With a little more focus and perhaps a bit more of a point, An American Pickle could have been one the year’s best films. Even without those things, it is still a good bit of fun - a just worthy enough way to spend an evening in when all we have are evenings in.

First and foremost, An American Pickle is a vehicle for its star Seth Rogen. He plays two roles - Herschel Greenbaum and his great grandson Ben. Herschel is a Jewish immigrant who is - yep - pickled for 100 years after an accident at a pickle factory. He is - ahem - unpickled in the present day and handed off to his only living relative Ben, a mild-mannered software developer living in now-trendy Brooklyn.

The film is at its absolute best in the first 30 minutes or so. You get the wickedly grim humor of Herschel’s time in the old country - somewhere in Eastern Europe, where the sky is the same color as the mud of his village’s roads. And you also get the fish-out-of-water laughs of Ben introducing his great grandfather to the magic of modern times, voice assistants and all.

Apparently Rogen talking to Rogen - one of them with an overly serious demeanor and a silly accent - is more of a comedy sketch than a feature-length film, and so director Brandon Trost and writer Simon Rich take the story somewhere else. Herschel and Ben have a falling out - Ben’s more sensitive and less industrious approach to the world perplexing his great granddad to the point of exasperation. Herschel sets out on his own to make trash pickles and jokes at the expense of Brooklyn hipsters abound.

An American Pickle loses considerable steam when Herschel and Ben split. The individual pursuits of these two star-crossed relatives are not nearly as interesting, it turns out, as their burgeoning relationship. The trash pickles are funny for a minute or two, but they feel like a detour, and one that lasts way, way too long.

What is interesting about this odd couple - beyond the fantastical revival of Herschel (!) - is their shared isolation and alienation. Herschel was miserable in the old country and never really got to live the American Dream. He registers his disappointment with his descendant vocally because Ben, it seems, hasn’t yet made good on Herschel’s sacrifices either. Ben’s own alienation has a root cause, too.

Neither man seems to fully recognize the opportunity simply knowing each other represents. An American Pickle takes a circuitous route, but when it finally hits on this point, you get the warm and fuzzy feelings the beginning of the film hints at.