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Despite receiving mixed reviews, Seth Rogen’s latest offering, An American Pickle, is thematically rich and possesses real heart — especially during its final act. In 1920, Herschel — a Jewish immigrant — falls into a vat of pickles and is preserved for 100 years. Revived in 2020, he connects with his great grandson, Ben, and the pair enter into a love/hate relationship. Adapted from a short story by Simon Rich and directed by Brandon Trost (his first solo directing credit), the film sees Rogen play both leads in this absurdist buddy comedy.
Schlupsk natives, Herschel Greenbaum and his wife, Sarah (Succession’s Sarah Snook), immigrate to New York in 1920, intent on starting a family and purchasing a family plot in a Jewish cemetery. While working at a pickle factory, Herschel falls into a vat of pickles and is brined, emerging — perfectly preserved — 100 years later. As an immigrant in America, he was already a fish-out-of-water, but now he’s a man-out-of-time. Despite his immediate family being long dead, the doctors inform Herschel that he has a relative, the same age as him, who lives nearby. Ben Greenbaum, Herschel’s great grandson, is an orphan and struggling app developer who can’t seem to let go of his 5-year work in progress: an app called Beep Bop that allows the user to review a company’s ethics before purchasing their product.
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While the pair initially hit things off, Herschel and Ben clash over Ben’s disregard for the Jewish faith. Herschel is disheartened when he finds the family plot in ruin — and overshadowed by a billboard advertising Russian vodka — and gets into a fight with some construction workers, resulting in his and Ben’s arrest. With a criminal record, Ben is now unable to sell his app and blames Herschel for his failure. On the streets, Herschel begins an impromptu pickle business and becomes a minor celebrity. Ben, jealous of his great grandfather’s newfound success, takes advantage of Herschel’s outdated (and unacceptable) views to sabotage the business — turning America against him by exposing his prejudices. Ultimately, this leads to the government trying to deport Herschel, citing outdated immigration papers, and he is forced to go on the run.
Why An American Pickle Goes Back To Schlupsk
As the threat of deportation looms, Herschel convinces Ben to help him escape to Canada rather than go back to Schlupsk — which he has vowed never to return to. On the journey to the border, they start to rekindle their relationship and Ben admits his numerous attempts to sabotage Herschel’s new life. Upset, Herschel vocally disapproves of Ben’s ambitions — feeling like he cares more about a stupid app than their family legacy. The pair fight and Ben is knocked out, allowing Herschel to swap their clothes and shave his beard with Ben’s razor. Herschel alerts the police to Ben’s location, and Ben is incorrectly deported to Herschel’s hometown of Schlupsk, bringing the narrative full-circle, and flipping the previous fish-out-of-water dynamic on its head.
Though mistaken identity is a very common trope, popularized by Shakespeare, it can still be an effective way to compare the lives of two characters, literally placing them in each other’s shoes to highlight their differences and — more importantly — their similarities. In sending Ben back to Schlupsk, he is stripped of all modern distractions and forced to confront the death of his parents (grief that he has been harbouring for years). In America, Herschel discovers that Ben’s app, Beep Bop, is named after the childhood nicknames that he had for his parents. Like Herschel’s quest to restore the family cemetery, Ben has been honouring his heritage in a manner that is typical of his era. Their goals are, essentially, the same — but their methods differ greatly.
How The Greenbaums Rediscover Their Jewish Roots
In Schlupsk, Ben struggles to find anyone who speaks English, until he arrives at a synagogue. The men inside accept him as one of their own, and he is invited to pray with them: the first scene in which Ben openly acknowledges his grief, and begins to understand the positive effects that religion can bring. Experiencing a change of heart after discovering Ben’s tribute to his late parents, Herschel returns to Schlupsk and the pair make amends, deciding to pool their differences and start a pickle business together. They return to New York and pray together in their family cemetery. While Ben doesn’t yet know the correct words, he joins in with a regular “Amen!” — willfully partaking in a tradition that he had long thought futile.
In a Screen Rant interview, Seth Rogen discussed An American Pickle’s religious themes, stating:
“I think it’s something that, to me, was a very interesting subject: the balance of cultural Judaism and religious Judaism, and how Jewish people are inseparable from their religion in many ways”. As a result: “A lot of Jews I know, myself included, tend to abandon all religious aspects of their Judaism,” however, “as I got older, I would realize […] people do gravitate back towards their religion, because they have helpful tools and infrastructures built around some of these big life moments that are hard to deal with sometimes, specifically death.”
This plays into the message of the film — namely, that one shouldn’t shut oneself off from the positive aspects of different or seemingly outdated traditions and practices. Despite Ben not being active in his community, he discovers that there is value it participating with others who share the same history as him.
In a post-credits sequence, the filmmakers confirm that this positive exchange doesn’t have to be based on religion, but can be cultural instead. Where Ben is exposed to Herschel’s tradition via the synagogue, Herschel is exposed to Ben’s via a screening of the film Yentl (1983), starring Jewish icon, Barbra Streisand (who co-starred with Rogen in The Guilt Trip). On the surface, it’s a final, silly gag, but it actually helps to further cement the universality of the film’s message. While An American Pickle is definitely a Jewish story, its lessons are applicable to all.
An American Pickle’s REAL Meaning, Explained
In essence, An American Pickle is a response to our current political and social climate, disapproving of the tribalism rife within our world, and proffering an ethos of togetherness.”We’re not so different, you and I” is an overused phrase, but one that rarely fails to resonate, and a message that the movie reinforces with Seth Rogen’s dual performance as both Herschel and Ben. They are literally and metaphorically the same guy. While this could be seen as an easy message for Rogen, Rich, and Trost to support, being a group of white men, the sentiment feels genuine, and the movie never condones the bad behaviour of either Herschel or Ben — highlighting it as such on almost every occasion, though we come to forgive them as they learn to forgive each other.
While reviewers have criticised An American Pickle for not going far enough with its wacky premise, the decision to err on light satire — with jabs at hipsters, social media, cancel culture, celebrity culture, and the American immigration system — only increases its widespread appeal, allowing audience members of all ages to appreciate its familial themes, without fear of crossing the line into R-rated territory (Rogen’s usual domain).
An American Pickle is a movie about family, for families, and could very easily become a Hanukkah tradition (the Jewish answer to Elf, perhaps) and a feel-good feather in Seth Rogen’s cap. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel by any means, but doesn’t seem to be trying to, instead offering an emotional, hopeful experience that will no-doubt give comfort to many people around the world, religious or otherwise. In an era as ideologically disparate as the one we’re currently living in, inspiring a sense of hope is no mean feat, and an achievement that could well see An American Pickle stand the test of time — no brine required.