Butler's Cinema Scene

Seth Rogen…and Seth Rogen

“AN AMERICAN PICKLE” My rating: B- (HBO Max)

90 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Before bogging down in a flabby middle section, HBO’s “An American Pickle” (aka “In A Pickle”) establishes itself as a gonzo comedy with more than a little soul.

The time-travel fantasy offers Seth Rogen in non-stoner mode as both a turn-of-the-last-century Eastern European Jew and as his modern great-great grandson.

Putting aside the complexities of filming this double performance (it was shot in two phases to give Rogen a time to grow a luxurious Tevye-type beard), “American Pickle” shows the slacker funny man has some serious acting chops.

In a beautifully filmed prologue (using a square-frame format and pastel palette that evokes the earliest color photography) we witness the early life of Herschel (Rogen), a Jewish ditch digger in some Eastern European backwater circa 1919.

In a sweetly comic passage Herschel woos and weds Sarah (Sara Snook of HBO’s “Succession”); they then hop a boat to America where Herschel gets a job killing rats in a pickle factory and looks forward to the birth of their first child.

He dies in an industrial accident, falling into a vat of brine. Before anybody notices that Herschel is gone, the factory is shuttered.  One hundred years later he awakens, perfectly preserved by the pickle juice.

What follows is both a fish-out-of-water yarn and a sort of dysfunctional family reunion. Herschel is united with his one living relation, great-grandson Ben (Rogen again), a dweeby app developer whose lack of success flies in the face of Herschel’s longheld belief that their family is destined for greatness.

Seth Rogan, Sarah Snook

When it becomes clear that the ineffectual Ben is a long shot for success, Herschel goes back to doing what he knows…pickles.  He snaps up all the cucumbers at his local Brooklyn market and starts his own artisanal pickle company…much to the delight of his trendy millennial neighbors.

These early passages are terrific, dishing droll dialogue and amusing observations on the Jewish psyche.

At some point, though, “An American Pickle” (the script is by Simon Rich, the direction by Brandon Trost) runs out of steam and becomes bogged down in the Herschel/Ben conflict.

The good news is that it redeems itself in its final moments, returning to the sweet silliness that characterized the earliest passages.

Do I smell an Emmy nomination in Rogen’s future?

| Robert W. Butler