An American Pickle

I'm going to say that this movie comes across, both in terms of its conception of itself and its target audience, as being very specific. Jewish? Unquestionably; Jewishness is a cornerstone of the plot, so much so that one can say without a doubt that this is probably the Jewiest movie since the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man. Stoner? Considering the source, Seth Rogen, that's a no-brainer. There's a lot of humor in here that qualifies as humor only if you're watching under the influence. Brooklyn hipster? Seems that way, if you count the segment of that population that is fine with laughing at themselves. (That might be a mere sliver of the total cohort, but perhaps enough to count.) All of the above? Probably so. Ultimately, the target audience here, when viewed in the aggregate, seems to be...Seth Rogen. That would explains how he is in virtually every shot of the movie, and how it largely lacks any other big names. So this is really a personal project to the extreme, a movie tailored almost entirely to an audience of Seth Rogen. Is that enough to make it worth watching? Are you Seth Rogen? Then sure, go for it. Are you Seth Rogen-adjacent? In that case, it will probably work for you, too. If you're anyone else...Maybe, maybe not. In cinematic terms, the movie has enough mildly amusing elements to make it a solid effort, if not something spectacular. At a certain point, it looks like the film will follow a Being There trajectory, putting Rogen's Herschel in the stead of a modern Chance, but the plot then veers off in a different direction, one that seems to leave opportunities for real, biting social satire left unfulfilled. That's the overall sense here: a movie that is OK at what it is trying to do, but that could have been a lot smarter and more impactful had a bit more effort been put into it beyond creating the two main characters. Maybe, this one just needed to brine a bit longer to end up with a better, crisper product.