Movie: American Pastoral (2016)

Movie: American Pastoral (2016)

American Pastoral is a tragic drama about a family that was destined to be perfectly happy, but ended up being somewhat miserable.

A beauty queen and the best high school football player in the country marry and create a beautiful life in the countryside, but give birth and raise a flawed daughter. She does something that ruins everything for everyone and the majority of the movie follows the aftermath of that event. No one ends up happy.

This was weird. It should have been good with the cast and the nice cinematography, but it felt like the actors were reading from giant cards being held up behind the camera. It also felt like it should have been a play, not a movie. Some light IMDB digging and I find out this was inspired by a novel and originally written in 2006, but the cast and directors dropped out for one reason or another until Ewan MacGregor came on board to direct, his first ever movie.

I'm giving American Pastoral two stars**. I watched the entire movie, but I think it was really stiff and I don't ever want to see it again, and I can't think of a good reason to recommend it to anyone. So there.

I checked this movie out on DVD from the library.