An American Pickle review – sweet generational comedy lacks a little bite | The Guardian

Seth Rogen stars as both a modern Jewish New Yorker and his miraculously revived great-grandfather in this affable fish-out-of-water tale The British food writer and fermentation expert Thom Eagle writes that “crunch, heat – but not too much heat – sweetness and sharpness and salt” are what make a good pickle. This warm and whimsical caper about an immigrant worker who is brined for a century in a vat of pickles is sweet enough, but lacks an essential wince-inducing bite.Based on Simon Rich’s 2013 short story Sell Out, serialised in the New Yorker, it stars Seth Rogen as Herschel Greenbaum, a “ditch-digger” in rural Poland circa 1919 who emigrates to America with his wife and lands a job in pest control at a pickle factory in Brooklyn. A freak accident sees him falling into a vat of brine; a hundred years later the barrel and a perfectly preserved Herschel are discovered. He connects, then clashes with his great-grandson Ben (also played by Rogen), an app developer and all-round hipster cliche. Continue reading…

Seth Rogen stars as both a modern Jewish New Yorker and his miraculously revived great-grandfather in this affable fish-out-of-water tale

The British food writer and fermentation expert Thom Eagle writes that “crunch, heat – but not too much heat – sweetness and sharpness and salt” are what make a good pickle. This warm and whimsical caper about an immigrant worker who is brined for a century in a vat of pickles is sweet enough, but lacks an essential wince-inducing bite.

Based on Simon Rich’s 2013 short story Sell Out, serialised in the New Yorker, it stars Seth Rogen as Herschel Greenbaum, a “ditch-digger” in rural Poland circa 1919 who emigrates to America with his wife and lands a job in pest control at a pickle factory in Brooklyn. A freak accident sees him falling into a vat of brine; a hundred years later the barrel and a perfectly preserved Herschel are discovered. He connects, then clashes with his great-grandson Ben (also played by Rogen), an app developer and all-round hipster cliche.

Continue reading…