An American Pickle Parent Guide

Herschel Greenbaum (Seth Rogen) lives a hard life in Schlupsk (a vaguely Eastern European village), digging ditches to earn a living. But when he meets Sarah (Sarah Snook), he decides that he wants a better life so, in 1920, the pair pack up and move to New York. Herschel finds work as a rat-catcher in a pickle factory, until a bizarre accident sees him falling into a barrel of pickle brine immediately before the factory is condemned. Left in his airtight barrel, Herschel is perfectly preserved for a century until some kids playing with a drone knock the lid off. Now confronted with the harsh realities of life in the 21^st century, Herschel tries to find comfort in his only surviving relative, great-grandson Ben Greenbaum (Seth Rogen), but soon finds that the differences between them may make a relationship impossible…

Seth Rogen is notorious for raunchy, highly sexual stoner comedies, and considering that this is releasing solely on HBOGo, it seems that he’d have cart blanche on all the dirty jokes his heart desires. This is, shockingly, not the case. This is a touching little story about the importance of family, religion, and hard work. And not a single reference to marijuana to be found – which, to my recollection, might make this the only Seth Rogen movie with that distinction.

All that said, this picture still isn’t squeaky clean – but it is close. There is a small amount of cussing, a few fistfights, and a number of deliberately offensive comments about both gender and religion (used to highlight the differences in culture between past and present). I’d say this film is perfectly pegged at a PG-13.

This movie isn’t necessarily for everyone, despite its remarkably clean bill of content: An American Pickle is usually a bit goofy. You could probably have assumed that from the premise, but this isn’t a terribly serious comedy. If you can’t handle some silliness, you’ll hate this film. I think the wackiness is handled remarkably well, and the lighthearted screwball plot makes the more important emotional discussion feel more grounded and significant. It has a remarkably sincere approach to both faith and grief, and even if the comedy isn’t your style, you might want to give it a watch. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write about a Seth Rogen comedy.