By Emilio Frenk
Director: Ewan McGregor.
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Jennifer Connelly, Dakota Fanning, Peter Riegert, Rupert Evans, Uzo Aduba, Molly Parker, Samantha Mathis and David Strathairn.
Rating: Poor.
Actor Ewan McGregor, makes his directorial debut with “American Pastoral” and I was expecting a higher effort from McGregor but this wasn’t the case.
Based on the novel by Phillip Roth, “American Pastoral” is based in the late 1960’s close to the Vietnam War and tells the story of Swede Levov (Ewan McGregor) the town’s most popular guy who fells in love and gets married to Dawn Levov (Jennifer Connelly) a former Miss New Jersey Pageant Model.
Everything in the life of the Levov’s is doing just fine and their daughter Merry is born but the problem is that she has a speech impediment making her stutter constantly.
Eventually a grown up Merry (Dakota Fanning) has a different point of view towards the regime of then president Lyndon B. Johnson and her view towards “The Vietnam War”. This transfortion andpolitical ideals of Merry begin to upset her parents.
Later she will be a suspect for a bombing that took place in their town and is wanted by the local police and the FBI.
Now Swede will try to find her daughter and try to keep the family together before it’s too late.
The major problem with “American Pastoral” was in narrative. The screenplay written by John Romano makes it by moments confussing and I really didn’t understand the presence of David Strathairn in this film. The main character is supposed to be Swede Levov but the problem is that the movie shifts on different directions and makes it a complete mess.
Ewan McGregor is one of the most talented actors that this industry has but his directorial debut was very unfortunate and the performances lacked of credibility and realism.
The movie should have been told from the point of view of McGregor’s character but the inclusion of a third party who narrate the story didn’t work and it should have been more straight forward.
The movie had a potential cast and a director who had everything to deliver but this wasn’t the case here. The stuttering on the character of Dakota Fanning was too much and less convincing. I felt tired on hearing her stutter constantly during the picture. I understand that is part of the character but it was too much.
The positive note that I have is that I liked that was the setup during the late 60’s and when they illustrate the rascist attacks is the only thing that worked.
The ending was very lame and weak making the film predictable from beginning to end.
I hope this is a huge learning lesson for Ewan McGregor and I hope he gets a second chance behind the camera in the future.
With all being said “American Pastoral” is one big dissapointments of this year and this is an example of how a talented cast is wasted without a clear direction.