Review: American Pastoral

-
Who are you?

Swede Levov (Ewan McGregor) was supposed to have the perfect life. He was a star athlete in high school, when he came back from the war, he married a beauty queen, Dawn. (Jennifer Connelly) He now runs his father's shop and has a beautiful daughter, Merry. (Dakota Fanning) Merry has a severe stutter, and that stresses him out a bit, but that's nothing compared to the radical anti war ideas she develops when she's 16. When Merry bombs a post office and flees, Swede is stuck between wanting to find his daughter who hates him, and trying to move on.

McGregor takes on not only the lead role but the directing reigns too. The former is easier for him. His direction is quite text book at times, but he nails the more emotional scenes. The acting from the three leads is wonderful, especially Dakota Fanning. I wish she was talked about more when it comes to Supporting Actress nominees. The film captures the 60's look well and Alexandre Desplat's score is lovely as always.

I never read the novel this was based on. From what I understand, the novel also left a lot of questions. The film does the same thing, and when it ended, while a poignant scene, I couldn't help but want a bit more.

Recommended: Yes

Grade: B

Memorable Quote: "It tastes like your da-da-daughter." - Rita Cohen (Valorie Curry)

Comments

  1. Candice FrederickNovember 8, 2016 at 7:57 AM

    I am so glad to hear this is decent. I missed the screening, but I was interested to hear what folks thought about it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 8, 2016 at 10:13 AM

    When the trailer dropped I penciled in Fanning as a sure fire Supporting Actress nominee...and then the screenings didn't go well and the film basically lost all it's buzz. I'm glad to hear that it's good, though. I'm very intrigued by this one. I love McGregor!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamNovember 8, 2016 at 10:22 AM

      Fanning deserves to be there, honestly. I'm not sure why no one is talking about her. It's not as if a big part of the film is bad or anything.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by, let's talk movies!
(comments are moderated to reduce spam)

Popular posts from this blog

Random Ramblings: The Radio Flyer Conundrum

-
Image
Recently, I was talking to someone about who I thought were the best child actors when I was also a child.  Two that really stood out to me were Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazello, and one film those two were in together was called Radio Flyer.  Then I was reminded about the uniqueness of this film. Instead of reviewing the film, I wanted to have an open discussion about the ending. It deals with a tough issue; child abuse. What I’ve noticed is the way that the film ends is interpreted many different ways, and the filmmakers never came forward to say what was right and wrong. I’m interested in hearing everyone’s opinions on it. How did you interpret the ending? Obviously spoiler alerts will follow.. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, the basic premise is this: Two young boys, Mikey (Wood) and Bobby (Mazello) move in with their single mother and her boyfriend, who refers to himself as ‘The King’. It doesn’t take long for The King to start physically abusing ...
Read more

Indie Gems: Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

-
Image
Passionate about your profession? I had never heard of this film until it ended up on one of Jason's favorite horror movie lists around Halloween. It immediately sounded interesting to me, so of course I threw it in my Netflix queue. (and if I'm just now watching it after adding it around Halloween, you know how ridiculous my queue is) Taylor (Angela Goethals) is a journalist who, along with a film crew decides to follow around a serial killer named Leslie Vernon. (Nathan Baesel) He plans on doing the typical slasher thing - getting a bunch of drunk teens in an abandoned house and knocking them off one by one. He gets advice from a retired serial killer, Eugene (Scott Wilson) and is threatened by a man who's on to him, Doc Holloran (Robert Englund) Taylor and crew are there capturing it all. Leslie Vernon is fucking hilarious to start with, and clearly very passionate about what he does. He tells Taylor all of his secrets and can barely contain his excitemen...
Read more

My Favorite Movie Youtube Channels

-
Image
Starting around 2018, I started watching Youtube for more than just movie trailers or music videos whenever a new one dropped. Now I'm in full blown subscription mode and don't bat an eyelash at watching a Youtube video that's over an hour long. I watch Youtube for a few different categories of content, but one of them that I love most is movie/TV essays and commentary, and that's what I'm going to talk about today. Below is a list of my favorite movie related Youtube channels. Let me know if you're familiar with them too, or if you have any you'd like to recommend to me.  Double Toasted - I'm honestly surprised this channel isn't bigger. I first came across Korey and Martin when they reviewed War for the Planet of the Apes a few months before it hit theaters and I thought they were hysterical. While their full length videos stream on Twitch, they often upload their movie reviews and commentary on youtube and they're always hilarious. They've...
Read more