American Pastoral (2016)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Blistering performances.

First off, I have to admit that Ewan McGregor did a decent job for a first-time director, however, that doesn't excuse the flaws in its development and implementation. The first half of the story seems right on the nose, with its criticism of the perfect marriage of a beauty queen and football star, like a dramatic interpretation of the Married with Children TV series. It all seems to go downhill as the daughter, slowly becomes every conservative parent's worst nightmare. This character dynamic would have been a perfect opportunity to make a social/political statement about the core problem with the myth of the America dream, but instead it takes us down a darker road, where liberalism, under the guise of the daughter, is used as an equivalent to terrorism. Completely missing from this story, which takes place in the 60's around the anti-war movement, is any notion of the peaceful hippy or yippie protester. The overall theme of the second half of the film comes across as a story written by a CIA operative posing as a writer. I haven't read the book, so I can't tell if this is a misinterpretation by the film adaptation. Beyond the extreme right wing overtones of thematic elements, there are also many holes in the narrative, which require suspension of disbelief in large supply. Most of these disappointing elements could have been remedied by turning the antagonistic roles away from the daughter and mother, and onto the father, who didn't seem deserving of the sympathy awarded to the protagonist.

What a strange one this is. The movie strays pretty far from the book, and plays like the weirdest episode of Mad Men never filmed. The tone is unrelentingly dour, and the point is... what? Stuttering leads to radicalization? Don't have a mixed marriage? The 60s were a bitch? It's well done, and the filmmakers' hearts were in the right place but David Strathairn as the Philip Roth character and Ewan McGregor as a Jewish guy? Nope.

They appear to be the ideal American family. That is so not the case. First of all why would any parent let a 16 year old go alone into New York City to meet "friends" that the parents have never met? Let alone in a time period of civil unrest, and second when they act the part of a bratty fool as the character Merry. Great job by all the actors and Ewan McGregor pulling double duty acting and directing. The story screws with your mind and in the end, ew. Good psychological thriller, not sure who I'd recommend it to though.

A great movie by Ewan McGregor starting Ewan McGregor. Ewan McGregor takes on on a very dramatic turn as he plays An All- American college star with as beauty queen wife raising an all American daughter who gets caught up in the revolution of the 60s.The daughter is played by Dakota fanning in the type of roles she gravitates towards even when she was underage. Jennifer Connelly does an outstanding Job as the shield wife. In fact McGreogor creates the type of film all actors want to be have a role in.It creates a vast spin of emotion as you start to go through what main character is going through as his life spirals downward out of control.Well done direction by Ewan McGregor.http://cinemagardens.com