Skip to main content
Home The New Paper
  • Home
  • News
    • Singapore
    • World
    • Business
    • Views
    • Backstage
    • Others
  • Sports
    • Football
    • Singapore Football
    • Team Singapore
    • School Sports
    • Athletics
    • Basketball
    • Cricket
    • Swimming
    • Tennis
    • Golf
    • Racing
    • Others
  • Entertainment
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV
    • Star Style
    • School of Frock
  • Lifestyle
    • Makan
    • Hed Chef
    • Weets Eats
    • Health
    • Tech
    • Travel
    • Fashion
    • Shopping
    • Biker Boy
    • Celeb Chow
    • Others
  • Racing
  • Your Tip-Offs
  • Read E-Paper
  • Contests
  • Coupon
  • Team

Popular

  • COURT & CRIME
  • Food & Drink
Movies

Movie review: An American Pickle

Movie review: An American Pickle
An American Pickle sees Seth Rogen in dual roles - the life-hardened immigrant Herschel Greenbaum and his hipster descendent Ben. PHOTO: HOPPER STONE/SMPSP
Jonathan Roberts
Digital Editor
Review
Jan 20, 2021 06:00 am
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • E-mail this article
  • 0 Engagements

Sweet is not a term you'd expect to use when it comes to a Seth Rogen comedy.

His stoner image - complete with gravelly cartoon laugh and R21 humour - is so strong that it eclipses his less brash personas.

An American Pickle, now showing on HBO Go, sees him in dual roles - Herschel Greenbaum and his descendent Ben.

The former is life-hardened and filled with an immigrant's determination while the latter is a hipster app designer.

Herschel, a Jew from Schlupsk in Eastern Europe, falls into a pickle vat in 1920s Brooklyn at the very moment the factory is condemned. He's revived 100 years later, perfectly preserved - the scientific explanation for which is quite brilliant.

While he sets out to make his pickle business a success - finding hipster-ridden Brooklyn embracing his "artisanal" ways - the adrift and isolated Ben becomes increasing jealous of his forebear.

Movie review: Music
Movies

Music's from the heart, even if it is tone-deaf

Feb 24, 2021

Related Stories

Movie review: I Care A Lot

After Parasite, Korean movie Minari is talk of Hollywood

Movie review: To All The Boys: Always And Forever

Like many comedies before it where the supposedly less intelligent fish out of water offers wise insight, An American Pickle does have some comments on today's society.

For example, hipsters are so enamoured with authenticity, they don't question the origins of unlabelled jars of pickles sold from a cart in the street.

And while Herschel's a nice guy, his old-world opinions are both vilified and championed online. With the Eastern European accent, these moments also border on Borat territory.

Thankfully, this culture clash comedy doesn't just fall for obvious lines.

There's a surprisingly heartfelt moment when Herschel gets to experience the simple delight of seltzer water - something denied to him in the previous century, yet created in an instant in Ben's home.

It's small moments like these that help steer him away from being just a cartoon.

The film does have a problem in that it dithers about the exact story it wants to tell, flitting across scenarios without fully landing on one.

At times it feels like a series of sketches and you're just here to be buffeted along to the conclusion.

That said, Rogen's excellent performances make An American Pickle worth spending time with.

AN AMERICAN PICKLE (PG13)

SCORE: 3/5

Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now

Movies

Jonathan Roberts

Digital Editor
jonrob@sph.com.sg
Read articles by Jonathan Roberts
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • E-mail this article
  • Newslink -  Purchase this article for republication

Top Stories this Month

Makansutra: Mad for this moist millennial char kway teow
Makan

Mad for this moist and marvellous char kway teow

Feb 25, 2021
Wild boar drags woman for a metre in Punggol attack
Singapore

Wild boar drags woman for a metre in Punggol attack

Feb 22, 2021
Father on late son’s fiancee: She was like a daughter to me
Singapore

Father on late son's fiancee: She was like a daughter to me

Feb 16, 2021
Home
  • Contests
  • Coupon
  • Team
  • Home
  • News
    • Singapore
    • World
    • Business
    • Views
    • Backstage
    • Others
  • Sports
    • Football
    • Singapore Football
    • Team Singapore
    • School Sports
    • Athletics
    • Basketball
    • Cricket
    • Swimming
    • Tennis
    • Golf
    • Racing
    • Others
  • Entertainment
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV
    • Star Style
    • School of Frock
  • Lifestyle
    • Makan
    • Hed Chef
    • Weets Eats
    • Health
    • Tech
    • Travel
    • Fashion
    • Shopping
    • Biker Boy
    • Celeb Chow
    • Others
  • Racing
  • Your Tip-Offs
  • Read E-Paper
  • Contact TNP
  • About SPH
  • Privacy Statement
  • Data Protection Policy
  • Member Terms & Conditions
  • Website Terms & Conditions
SPH Digital News Copyright © 2021 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. Co. Regn No. 198402868E