Pickles, hipsters and irony in Seth Rogen’s new film, 'An American Pickle'
The movie’s best jokes involve Herschel as a fish-out-of-water in the hipster heaven of Williamsburg, where he fits right in with his long beard and shlumpy clothes.
By HANNAH BROWNProducer Seth Rogen at the premiere for the film "Good Boys" in Los Angeles, California, U.S., August 14, 2019(photo credit: REUTERS/MARIO ANZUONI)
Toward the end of An American Pickle, the movie starring Seth Rogen in dual roles as Herschel, an old Jewish immigrant to the US, and Ben, his hipster great-grandson, which will be released by HBO Max on August 6, the characters have the following dialogue:Herschel: Many people still hate Herschel very much.Ben: That is true.Herschel: I say many terrible things. And if one thing is true in America, once you say terrible things, you will never be success.Ben: That is not true. At all.Herschel: Oh, that is great news.Ben: Still, we should make some apologies.This exchange seems particularly prescient in view of the furor Rogen stirred up last week with his comments on Israel on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast, when he said he was “fed a huge amount of lies about Israel” growing up, and essentially described Zionism as a stupid idea. He apparently apologized in a Zoom call with Jewish Agency chairman Isaac Herzog over the weekend, then told journalists Allison Kaplan Sommer of Haaretz and Mairav Zonszein that he only made the call because his mother forced him to.There’s a lot of irony in this whole shonda because the movie, which Rogen produced and which was written by Simon Rich and directed by Brandon Trost, is a paean to Jewish continuity, and acknowledges the fight against antisemitism. It opens with Rogen playing the older character, Herschel Greenbaum, a ditch-digger in the early 20th century in an Eastern-European shtetl called Schlupsk, who speaks in Yiddish as he woos his beloved Sarah (Sarah Snook).But life isn’t idyllic for the young couple, as cossacks invade their wedding and slaughter everyone else in town, leaving them spattered with blood, which inspires them to emigrate to the US right away. After a hostile reception by the immigration authorities at Ellis Island, they settle in Brooklyn, where Herschel gets a job in a pickle factory, falls into the brine vat just as the business is condemned, and awakens a century later.His great-grandson is his only living relative and he moves in with the insecure young app designer as he tries to figure out how he can fit into a world he can’t understand.Before you can say “artisanal pickles,” Herschel starts making and selling these from a pushcart. The movie’s best jokes involve Herschel as a fish-out-of-water in the hipster heaven of Williamsburg, where he fits right in with his long beard and shlumpy clothes.But the movie falls apart as a feud between Herschel and Ben erupts and escalates. It’s at its best and is intermittently touching when they’re together with Ben as his great-grandfather’s tour guide in this brave new world. At times, it’s reminiscent of the 2008 Bulgarian film The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, in which a grandfather helps his depressed grandson embrace life.Although An American Pickle isn’t meant to be strictly plausible, it was hard to fathom that both of them could become as mean-spirited as they do in the final third, even if we know from the outset that the two will reconcile before the running time is over.Those upset with Rogen over his comments about Israel will raise their eyebrows at how Ben manipulates Herschel into making Old-World comments about women and gays that get him in trouble with the PC police, since it seems that it is the approval of social justice warriors that Rogen was courting in his interview. And it seems clear from the shtetl scenes that Rogen is well aware of antisemitism.There is also an implicit critique of Ben’s alienated hipster lifestyle. In the movie’s telling, Ben needs to be connected with his roots through his great grandfather, who gets him to recite the mourner’s prayer (kaddish) for his parents in a cathartic moment. But in spite of these ironies and the controversy, Rogen’s legions of fans will likely make this Pickle a success. As Ben says near the end, Americans can still love you after you say terrible things.
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