Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Megamind To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

mackeymary-98-478708 Brilliantly filmed and acting superb American Pastoral shows how lives can be turned upside down even for those whose beginnings are so charmed and envied. It's a sad movie but not false in the story of family, parental love and how, given the circumstances, that love can't save or fix what shatters their existence. Yes, we don't truly know what motivates Merry. But, in real life there are times, we never have the answers. Ewan McGregor captures this brilliantly.

Reno Rangan The book was from the 90s and the story is about the 60s. Narrated from the father's perspective, that's what I think did not work in this film. This is where a film and the book does not synch. Because books are always very detail when it describes a person. In the films, they are just a simple visual where viewers have to focus on those details to have a perfect impression like the book. So I totally point out to the writer who did not quite transformed the point of the storytelling.It is not the parents to decide what their kids want to be. The film opened with a couple ready to get married, arguing with their elders about something. Soon it forwards to a few years where their relationship with their daughter seems not good. Further, they become more distant and completely lose her for the unrest in the society and the nation. But father never gives up. His love and care for her leads the way and what comes later is even more disturbing before it all ends.It was Ewan McGregor's directional debut. I don't think he would try it again, not any time soon. But I would appreciate his quality of filmmaking. He only needs a better writer and the screenplay. I also think, he should not direct himself. I never considered him a best actor. I yet to see his performance. The film was not strong enough, if you are from outside the United States. Because what they call this 60s revolution was more a misunderstood by the young people. Particularly that religious thing, they were misled and spoiled their lives. So, instead of focusing that, the film centred on a father-daughter relationship. That is why it was a decent film. Otherwise I would have rated even wrose.5.5/10

gradyharp 'I was never more wrong about anyone in my life.'Philip Roth's superb book has passages of language that crystallizes our thinking, our memories, our association with life. In this cinematic transformation the words are placed in the utterances by Nathan Zuckerman, sort of an Everyman as he states in the opening of the film – 'Let's remember the energy. America had won the war. The depression was over. Sacrifice was over. The upsurge of life was contagious. We celebrated a moment of collective inebriation that we would never know again. Nothing like it in all the years that followed from our childhood until tonight, the 45th reunion of our high school class…30 or 40, a gathering of my old classmates would have been exactly the kind of thing I'd have kept my nose out of. But at 62, I found myself drawn to it as if in the crowd of half-remembered faces I'd be closer to the mystery at the heart of things, a magic trick that turned time past into time present'. John Romano adapted Roth's novel American PASTORAL for the screen. Ethan McGregor directs. We all reflect on a time that somehow, though placed in the 1960's resistance against the Vietnam War, is terrifyingly familiar with the mood of the nation at present, again at resistance rallies – and that is the reason it works so well.Seymour 'Swede' Levov (Ewan McGregor) was from the Jewish community and is an All- American sports star in high school. He had everything an American idol can dream of - a the tall muscular young man and high school star athlete but he married a Catholic beauty queen named Dawn (Jennifer Connelly) against his father's (Peter Riegert) advice. Swede later became the successful manager of the glove factory his father had founded, which allowed him to live with his wife in a beautiful house in the New Jersey countryside. Well-mannered, always bright, smiling and positive, conservative but with a liberal edge, what bad could ever happen to him? The couple's stuttering daughter Merry (Hannah Nordberg then Dakota Fanning) is their pride and joy until she steps into the 1960s and becomes an antiwar activist, responsible for bombing a little station, killing the owner in what is a senseless and horrifying change in life direction. Merry leaves home and the rest of the film is a father's search for peace with his distraught wife and community while he ceaselessly searches for his renegade daughter. A difficult film to watch, just as the book was challenging to read. But somehow the mirror it holds up to society as we are currently living it makes the disturbing experience all the more poignant.

subxerogravity A great movie by Ewan McGregor starting Ewan McGregor. Ewan McGregor takes on on a very dramatic turn as he plays An All- American college star with as beauty queen wife raising an all American daughter who gets caught up in the revolution of the 60s.The daughter is played by Dakota fanning in the type of roles she gravitates towards even when she was underage. Jennifer Connelly does an outstanding Job as the shield wife. In fact McGreogor creates the type of film all actors want to be have a role in.It creates a vast spin of emotion as you start to go through what main character is going through as his life spirals downward out of control.Well done direction by Ewan McGregor.http://cinemagardens.com