American Pastoral (2016) * * *

Directed by:  Ewan McGregor

Starring:  Ewan McGregor, Jennifer Connelly, Dakota Fanning, Peter Riegert, David Strathairn, Rupert Evans, Valorie Curry

American Pastoral taps into a universal parental fear of losing your child.   Seymour "Swede" Levov (McGregor) runs a successful glove manufacturing plant and seemingly has it all.    Then his stuttering teenage daughter Merry (Fanning) becomes swept up too fervently into the 60s civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movement.     She isn't your normal definition of teenage rebellion.     Her passion leads to planting a bomb in a local gas station, which explodes and kills the station owner.     Merry soon vanishes as the FBI lurks, leaving Swede and his wife Dawn (Connelly) to pick up the pieces.    How did it all go wrong?    The Levovs are well-off, respected in the community, and now they are known as the family with a bomber for a daughter.   

Time passes without leads.     A mysterious girl named Rita Cohen (Curry) appears and may hold the key to Merry's whereabouts.    Rita is not above seduction and extortion to manipulate a desperate Swede, who only wants to locate his long-missing daughter.    The dilemma remains:   Even if Merry is found, she still has to face the music for the bombing and life for the Levovs will never be the same again.    It is as if Swede and Dawn lost their daughter both literally and figuratively.    Swede never gives up hope, while Dawn descends into madness and a spiritual rebirth which may or may not include Swede in her plans. 

Directed by McGregor, American Pastoral compartmentalizes the 60s two biggest movements into the Levov's story.    We see how these movements exacerbated the family issues which lurked under the surface of a seemingly happy household.     Dawn and Swede take Merry to a therapist, who suggests Merry's stutter is based on psychological issues more than physiological ones.     The Levovs scoff at the notion, but time soon proves the therapist right.     They don't know how close to the truth the therapist is.

The film opens in 1996 with a family friend named Nathan (Straithairn) acting as narrator to us about Swede's greatness as a high school athlete and World War II hero.    Nathan couldn't imagine anything but happiness and success for Swede.     He marries former Miss New Jersey Dawn, who wins the approval of Swede's cantankerous father Lou (Riegert), who is forever exasperating his family with his strong opinions.     "What did I say?" is Lou's defiant, default attitude after once again offending someone with his bull-in-a-china shop verbosity.     Subtlety isn't his strong suit.    

American Pastoral, based on a Philip Roth novel, isn't easy material to shoehorn into formula.    It is mostly dark, with small glimmers of hope that only serve to be snatched away.     McGregor makes a sympathetic father who can't grasp how his daughter slipped through his fingers.     Any parent can relate to that dreaded time when our children begin thinking they know than we do.     In some cases, they are right.     In other cases, like with Merry, they are wrong with dangerous consequences.  

The stylistic device of Nathan's narration is mostly awkward and unnecessary.     We don't need Nathan to expound upon the wasted greatness of the blessed Swede.    Is this even the point of the story?    It's as if Nathan is narrating an entirely different tale while another one unfolds in front of us.    Despite this, McGregor moves the drama along well with a sure hand, even though this is his directorial debut.    Because American Pastoral covers ground which any family can relate to, we are drawn in.     We know the story won't end well, but the only question becomes how much the Levovs will lose in all of this.   

We witness Merry's innocence disappear behind rebellion and then anger and violence.    Swede only wants his daughter to return, but the fact that we won't know who exactly Merry is now casts a pall over everything.        I did not read the 1997 novel in which this film was adapted.     Critical reviews have been harsh, mostly because the movie doesn't live up to the novel.      I don't know.   I found
American Pastoral is its own way quite effective and powerful.     Maybe not reading the novel first is a blessing in disguise to a moviegoer like myself.