An American Pickle is a 2020 comedy/drama written by Simon Rich with the screenplay based on his own 2013 short story “Sell out”
The story follows Herschel Greenbaum, a jewish man that leaves his shtetl with his wife Sarah, to start a new life of success in New York with a lifelong dream to buy their own graves and drink sparkling water for the first time, however in the meanwhile Herchel gets a job at a Pickle factory as a rat-basher, only to fall into a large tub of pickles and brine preserving him perfectly for 100 years until the year 2019.
The movie stars Seth Rogen in a dual role as Herchel Greenbaum and his great grandson Ben Greenbaum,who takes in his great grandfather to help him come to terms with modern day life. Now the premise for this movie is bananas, a man perfectly preserved in pickle brine for 100 years isn’t something you usually see in a movie, but neither is vulgar talking supermarket items and Seth Rogen make that a real thing with sausage party so a Jewish man survived in pickle brine…yeah why not.
So to put things simply I loved this movie. Everything from the premise to the comedy and an outstanding performance on both ends from Seth Rogen all adds up to a great watch. So, this being a comedy movie,something that Rogen is well known for is this movie funny? Yes…is it his funniest movie? No, but this is a different sort of Seth Rogen comedy. All the vulgar language, drug humour and sex is stripped away from this movie, creating a new sort of extremely on the nose but hilarious comedy for Seth Rogen fans to enjoy with on point delivery,vocal or physical Seth Rogan knocks it out of the park with a stellar performance as both Herschel and Ben respectively and even though it might not have as many jokes to laugh at like other Rogen outings every single joke hits and even though i wasnt flat out busting my gut the fact it worked 100% made me appreciate it even more.
Even more on Rogen’s performance though his comedy is what he is known for, the drama in this is equally propelled to the audience in such a great way through Seth Rogen’s duel performance, there were scenes in this movie where i actually felt for the characters on screen, the serious moments were not bogged down by a joke that was just forced in to lighten the tone because its a ‘Comedy’ everything the movie tried to do it pulled it off with almost sheer perfection.
The only nit-pick I have is the beginning of the 3rd act felt a little slow for the first 10 mins but soon picked up to deliver a great and emotional family oriented finale.
Never would i have thought that something with a man being brined only to wake up 100 years later could have told such a heartwarming story of success,family,betrayal,and heartbreak and keep that balanced with precisely timed comedy that knew when it needed to be funny and when it needed to be serious the a career high performance from Rogen that shows the audience that whether you are rich, poor, smart, dumb…or wake up all of a sudden in a completely different timeline to achieve what you want to do all you have to do is ‘throw the first punch’.
Final Score.
Title:Incredible
Seth Rogen delivers a career high performance that shows his talents as a comedic and dramatic actor, and though its premise is wild and downright weird, the talent in front and behind the camera delivers a different type of Rogen comedy that does not only cement itself as one of my favorite Seth Rogen films, it’s also one of the best movies of the year.
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