American Pastoral

Ewan McGregor could have hardly picked a more difficult story to adapt. The ending will arouse emotions and maybe move some people, but everything before that misses the mark, coming across as something empty and without any meaningful message. McGregor is an emotional, likeable guy whose acting stills are not enough for such a complicated character. Jennifer Connelly’s moods change so fast that they don’t seem to belong to a single character, and the character of the troubled daughter just doesn’t work, period. American Pastoral is poorly directed and dramaturgically a complete failure of a film. (30.11.2016)

I was looking forward to a movie about the destruction of the American Dream, but I can't help it, it just didn't work out, and you're left with a fairly empty narrative where the actors tried, but it still wasn't enough. An excellent trio of actors in the lead roles, yet you still feel like it's very dull. Here, the script and set design failed, being incredibly restrained and not wanting to show anything more. (16.03.2017)

American Pastoral is a somewhat peculiar film that could have been very successful but remained somewhere halfway there. The whole time, I was incredibly annoyed by the behavior of the daughter Merry, played by Dakota Fanning. I guess that's why I couldn't really empathize with the story. My emotions got a bit shaken only at the very end. The clear message of the film for me remains that loving one's child unconditionally, no matter how dreadful their actions, does not pay off. It can take us to the very edge of the abyss from which there is no return. (65%) (04.06.2021)