Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

American Pastoral Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 9, 2017

Philip Roth’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel American Pastoral might have been adapted successfully as a feature film, but I have to wonder if Ewan McGregor was the right person to helm it, especially given the fact that this is his first outing as a feature film director. As undeniably gifted as McGregor has proven himself to be in any number of widely disparate film performances (simply contrast Trainspotting, Moulin Rouge! and Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace for a brief introduction to his versatility), the fact that McGregor is neither an American nor (perhaps more importantly, given this particular author) Jewish may have deprived him of some baseline understanding of the material. Certainly part of the problem with American Pastoral is due to the screenplay by John Romano (The Lincoln Lawyer), a well regarded screenwriter who has a strong background in literature (he reportedly has his Doctorate from Yale), but who, like McGregor, may be lacking in a certain cultural awareness that tends to color almost all of Roth’s work. You simply can’t divorce much of Roth’s output from the peculiar experiences of 20th (and now 21st) century Jewish Americans, for even when Roth isn’t overtly discussing these experiences, they’re almost subliminally interwoven into his tales of dysfunction and roiling psychological turmoil. That subliminal quality is perhaps even more pronounced in American Pastoral, and that may have been one reason why Romano and McGregor felt they could adapt this material: after all, what’s intrinsically “Jewish” about a story concerning a radicalized young girl in the mid-sixties whose parents struggle to come to terms with her activities? But as someone who had some fairly infamous leftist activists in my own family, I can tell you that there’s an undeniable link between a lot of “revolutionary” fervor starting as early as the 1930s in the United States that is inextricably part of at least some folks’ Jewish identity. American Pastoral never deals with this connection overly explicitly, and it therefore perhaps misses one of the most germane, if subtle, aspects of Roth’s original novel.

The idealism that was part and parcel of the early sixties, frequently attributed to the charisma of President Kennedy, gave way to something substantially darker in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination. Going from a “matinee idol” like JFK to a “character actor” type like Lyndon Baines Johnson was a cultural shock of some magnitude, even beyond the horror of having a president killed on a seemingly perfect autumn day in Dallas. With the United States’ increased involvement in the Vietnam War, as well as an uptick in racial unrest (despite LBJ’s commendable passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1965), the nation seemed to be having something of a collective nervous breakdown, often on generational lines. That whole aspect plays into American Pastoral’s subtext in its novelistic form, but Romano and McGregor tend to make it the focal element of the film, perhaps understandably, but also perhaps not entirely to the benefit of an accurate “reproduction” of Roth’s voice.

As with the novel, a high school reunion provides the framing device whereby American Pastoral’s story is unfolded. Nathan Zuckerman (David Strathairn) is a friend of the Levov family and reconnects with his old buddy Jerry Levov (Rupert Evans) at the party. That then leads to a discussion about, and ultimately flashbacks involving, Jerry’s older brother Seymour (Ewan McGregor), who due to his uncharacteristic (for Jews, anyway) blonde hair and Nordic appearance has been dubbed “Swede”. Already Roth’s sometimes subtle allusions to the assimilative tendencies of many 20th century Jews are being detailed, and that certainly becomes at least a bit more overt when it’s revealed that Swede ended up marrying a non-Jew, Dawn Dwyer (Jennifer Connelly), a former beauty queen who may not be the paradigm of a shiksa (she’s a brunette, after all), but who is “other” enough to create some friction in the Levov family. Nevertheless, Swede and Dawn seem to be happy, especially after they have a daughter named Meredith, who, like her father, is dubbed with a nickname, Merry (played by Dakota Fanning as a teenager).

In a perhaps subliminal allusion to Jewish folklore surrounding Moses, Merry has a stuttering problem, something that’s hinted (however weirdly) plays into her unrest that ultimately leads to her becoming radicalized as a young teenager. When a bomb goes off at the local post office, resulting in a death, Merry is the prime suspect and promptly disappears, leading to years of anxiety for Swede and Dawn. Dawn in fact goes a little off her rocker, dealing with both mental instability and, later, plastic surgery in an apparent attempt to “remake” herself into a supposedly happier individual. Swede’s reaction is considerably more stoic, something that again may undercut the film’s ability to deliver any resonant emotions, but he never gives up his quest to find his daughter.

American Pastoral commendably tries to come to terms with the angst parents feel when their kids do something unimaginable (interestingly, there’s been a lot of press given lately to the mother of Columbine shooter Dylan Klebold, who has come out with her own memoir of being the mother of one such child). But the film is never able to connect the dots adequately, instead drifting from vignette to vignette without finding a tether to link everything together. McGregor is fine in the central role, admirably displaying the increasing chaos in Swede’s emotional life as things spiral out of control, but the story itself seems diffused and never as viscerally gut wrenching as it should be. While the final moments attempt to deliver some heartstring tugging aspects, and in fact probably succeed at least partially in doing so, the film itself is too distant from its own subject matter, and certainly from a lot of Roth’s subtext, to ever achieve the impact it’s obviously aiming for.

American Pastoral Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

American Pastoral is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.37:1. Thank you to whoever created the closing credits for the film, since the Arri Alexa is clearly listed, freeing me from having to spend time tracking down technical data. McGregor utilizes the talents of cinematographer Martin Ruhe, who evidently has a background in music videos as well as occasional features like Harry Brown, and despite the film's frequent narrative lurches, from a visual standpoint, things are often beautifully elegiac, including some gorgeously framed shots of the countryside (see screenshots 4 and 5), some of which almost evoke the paintings of Andrew Wyeth. The palette is generally quite natural looking, and while occasional slight grading has been applied to some outdoor scenes (note the slightly blue tint during the big explosion scene at the post office for one example), the interior scenes, while a bit murky looking on occasion, offer well above average levels of detail and fine detail and at least acceptable shadow definition.

American Pastoral Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

American Pastoral's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track delivers decent if sometimes fairly subtle surround activity, especially courtesy of ambient environmental effects when the film is detailing life on the Levov farm. Alexandre Desplat's string drenched score also wafts through the surrounds quite winningly. Otherwise, this tends to be a film built out of smaller scale intimate dialogue scenes, and while there's not a wealth of surround activity in many of these sequences, everything is delivered cleanly and clearly and with excellent fidelity.

American Pastoral Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Ewan McGregor


• American Pastoral: Adapting an American Classic (1080p; 28:02) is an above average piece that features a number of interesting interviews and some behind the scenes footage.


• Making the American Dream (1080p; 17:38) is more of a making of piece, one that has a bit more of a self congratulatory ambience.

American Pastoral Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I evidently found a bit more to appreciate in American Pastoral than my colleague Brian Orndorf did in his review of the film's theatrical exhibition. That said, I share Brian's assessment that the film tends to wander a bit, something that's at least a little ironic given my personal qualms about its lack of understanding for Roth's almost always present Jewish subtext. The cast seems to be committed, but never quite finds the right way to depict these characters. Technical merits are strong for those considering a purchase.