American Pastoral

Actor Ewan McGregor's directorial debut adapts Philip Roth's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1997 novel about a father's disillusionment when his daughter becomes a terrorist during the social and political turmoil of the late 1960s. Awkwardly bookended by novelist Nathan Zuckerman's (David Strathairn) 45th high school reunion, it tells the story of Seymour “Swede” Levov (McGregor), a Jewish golden boy and star athlete, who marries Dawn Dwyer (Jennifer Connelly), an Irish-Catholic beauty queen, and settles into a bucolic life on a farm in Old Rimrock, a WASP-y western New Jersey township. Having inherited his father's glove factory in Newark, Swede is an avowed liberal, employing a work force that is 80 percent African American. It is inexplicable to him when his rebellious, Vietnam War-protesting, 16-year-old daughter Merry (Dakota Fanning) becomes radicalized and joins the Weather Underground, disappearing for many years. Long after his wife's nervous breakdown, stoic Swede continues to search for Merry, and he receives a mysterious visit from seductive Rita Cohen (Valorie Curry), who has information about Merry's whereabouts. Unfortunately, this adaptation fails to capture Roth's acerbic humor and sarcasm, and McGregor is seriously miscast, resulting in a shallow, superficial film that devolves into tawdry melodrama. Optional. (S. Granger)