American Pastoral

Directed by: Ewan McGregor

Best Quotes:

- Nathan Zuckerman: 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.

- Nathan: 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.

- Lou: What do you people say about Jews?
- Dawn: My family doesn't talk much about Jews. I don't mean that as an excuse. We don't talk much
about anything.

- Lou Levov: I have the highest respect, but my grandchild is not going to eat Jesus.

- Lou: She wants the child to decide? A child cannot decide.

- Dawn: I'm not leaving. I'm not going to go. And I'm not a picture, Mr. Levov, I'm myself. I'm Mary Dawn Dwyer and I love your son. I love him. That's why I'm here. So, please... Let's go on.

- Nathan: Something was smiling down on him. This is the way I thought it would always be. Life would open its arms and he would carry all before him. He was the Swede, after all.

- Jerry Levov: My brother, the best you're going to get in this country, got caught in a war he didn't start.

- Jerry: Oh, I guess you're the last person to hear, huh? The famous writer, the last one to hear the big story.

- Nathan: Jerry was correct. Here I was, the famous writer, the last one to know the story. But now I wanted all of it. I wanted to hear what had become of the young man from whom we had expected everything. Our hero. Our Kennedy.

-Lou: "Mounted"? ls that a way for a young girl to talk?
- Swede Levov: That's what it's called, Dad.
- Jerry; Yeah, what's she supposed to say? "Make love"? It's a cow.

- Sheila Smith: Maybe the reason Merry stutters is to stop people from asking her: "Do you want to be Miss New Jersey just like your Mommy?"

- Merry Levov: Do I look... look like Audrey Hepburn?
- Swede: Better. You look like Meredith Levov.

- Merry: Kiss me the way you kiss mother.

- Lou: There's nothing wrong with that little girl. Her mind goes too fast for her tongue

- Lou: Just give her a little bit of time. Let her tongue catch up to that brain. The rest will follow from that.

- Vicky: But, Lou, you built this place.You made a home for all of us. Where else do you belong?
- Lou: Exactly my point.

- Dawn: And then last week, the teacher asked them, "What is life?"
- Swede; This is what they ask in school? "What is life?" What did you answer?
- Merry (while stuttering):  I don't...remember.
-Swede: Yes, you do.
- Merry "Life is just a short space of time in which you were alive."

- Merry: Doesn't anybody...doesn't anybody have a conscience?
- Dawn: Yes, you have a conscience.

- Swede: This makes you the first Levov in history who can prepare edible food.

- Merry: Talk about an American classic. There's an American classic asshole.

- Merry: What do you care about the war? You're just contented, middle-class people.
- Dawn; Some people would be very happy to have contented, middle-class people for parents.
- Merry: Well, I'm not brainwashed enough to be one of them.

- Merry: Don't tell me what to do.
- Dawn:  I'm your mother. I can and I will tell you what to do.

- Dawn: I can't stand this.You're not anti-war, you're anti-everything.
- Merry: And you're pro...(stuttering) COW.

- Dawn: I don't know why she's turned against me. Is it her stuttering? Is she angry because she can't make friends?
- Swede: She's made friends, alright? The ones she's made in New York.
- Dawn:  Who is she? I thought she was smart. She's becoming stupid, Seymour.
- Swede: No. She's just a kid with a strong will, a strong idea.

- Dawn:  If I ever spoke to my mother like that, do you know what my father would have done?
- Swede: He would have turned you over his knee.
- Dawn: You think it's funny?

- Merry: That's why I have to go to New York, because people there do feel responsible, responsible for blowing up Vietnamese villages, blowing up little babies. But you don't care. And neither does Mother. No one in our family or in our fucking little town does.

Police Officer, talking to Swede: Sir, could you go to your vehicle? You need to get off the street. There's a curfew in effect.
- Merry: "Curfew"? What kind of fascist bullshit is that?

- Merry:  It's not a riot. It's a revolution. People standing up for their rights.

- Swede: We have 80% negroes working at the plant. We're proud of that.
- Merry: Oh, I forgot. You're a hero.

- Vicky: People are shooting. Police are shooting, and soldiers. People have lost their minds.

- Swede: All dressed up for your stupid...award that they gave you? You expect me to... congratulate you, too?

- Merry: I never thought my own father would keep me prisoner.

- Swede:  We're not talking about revolution.
- Merry: You're not talking about revolution.

- Penny: The two of you are as much victims of this tragedy as we are. I lost a husband. My kids lost a father. But the difference is that, for us we will survive as a family,a loving family. We will survive with our memories intact and our memories to sustain us. We are the same family we were when Russ was here. And we will survive. That's the difference.

- Swede: Slowly. Always slowly the first time. Feel how it expands when you make a fist.

- Rita: Well, she wouldn't like to speak with you. She hates you. Does she? Thinks you ought to be shot.

- Rita: The daughter of the beauty queen and the captain of the football team? What kind of nightmare is that for a girl with a soul?

- Swede: You give her back to me!
- Rita: She's not a possession. You don't own her anymore, the way you own your factory and your Buick fucking Electra.

- Jerry: Just go jump in a lake, nurse, please.

- Rita: Say it. Just say it, Swede. "I came here to fuck you."
- Swede: Will you stop all this?
- Rita: I'm 22. I do everything. I do it all. You're not scared, are you?

- FBI agent: You should have called us in on this, Mr. Levov. You've done everything wrong you possibly could've.
- Swede: Since when?
- FBI agent: Excuse me?
 - Swede: I've done everything wrong
since when?
- FBI agent: That's a question you're gonna have to answer for yourself, Mr. Levov.

- Dawn: I wanted a scholarship. I wanted a degree... a job. But then you arrived. You. Those hands. You wouldn't let me breathe! Every time I looked up, there's my boyfriend, gaga because I was some ridiculous beauty queen. You were like a child. And you made me a princess. Look where I wound up. In a madhouse. Your princess.

- Swede: I don't want to put the past behind. The past is Merry. There's no way I want to put that behind.

- Lou: The girl's herself again. Getting rid of those cows was the smartest thing she ever did.

- Rita: But don't go in. Wait for her. If you go in, you'll make a scene. She'll be discovered. She couldn't handle that. She'd never survive the FBI. Take care of her, Mr. Levov.

- Merry: I wear the veil to do no harm to the organisms that dwell in the air.
- Swede:  Merry, this is awful. Do you walk this way every night?
- Merry: Nor do we bathe, to do no harm to the water. We step carefully for fear of crushing some living object. There are souls imprisoned in even the lowest form of life.

- Swede: I think you're terrified of what you've done.

- Swede: You could die if you keep this up.
- Merry: But only to be reborn.

- Merry:  My stutter was only my way of doing no violence to the air.
- Swede: Well, maybe you would have been better off with your stutter if you had to go this far.

- Swede: My daughter! She's sick in her body. Sick in her mind!

- Dawn: When are you going to give up on her?
- Swede: I can't. I tried so hard, but I can't.
- Dawn: Our old life is gone, Swede. It's dead. This. This is our only future.

-Merry: How strongly you still crave the idea of your innocent child.

-Seymour: Was this just some kind of game you were playing with me, the two of you?
- Merry: I relinquish all cruelty, I relinquish all control, all influence over the world.

- Seymour: I made you and I found you. And there's no way I can ever lose you or you can ever lose me again.

- Merry:You've seen me. Please go now. If you love me, you'll let me be.

- Nathan:  What Merry blew up with that bomb of hers was nothing less than his life. 

- Nathan: He never got past the Rimrock Bomber,a girl who perhaps didn't deserve anything from him, who wasn't on the same playing field as him or anybody else.


Trailer:

Plot: From the outside it looks like Seymour has the perfect life. He is your successful American athlete turned businessman who married a former beauty queen. The only trouble in paradise is their daughter, Merry, who for reasons unknown stutters. As Merry grows up, she rebels against this seemingly perfect life and soon joins anti-Vietnam war protests. When the local post office is blown up, Merry becomes the prime suspect and vanishes completely...

Review:

Haven't read American Pastoral by Philip Roth, I knew I wouldn't be able to compare it to Ewan McGregor's film adapation and assumed there would be less risk of being let down by the movie. And yet, I was wrong. I was completely absorbed by the movie for the first 20 minutes or so but soon enough I found myself starting to lose interest. The plot is fascinating however and I had been very keen to watch American Pastoral, if only for its wonderful actors but something was...missing. I'm not sure I can explain it but it felt like it could have been a great movie, but it just missed something and  completely missed the mark. I wish there had been more depth to it and I certainly would have loved to get a greater appreciation of the characters. The whole thing seemed brushed off, as it often happens when you tackle a pretty large book in all fairness. The Jewish assimilation aspect is for instance reduced to a dialogue of maybe 1 minute and the main character's relationship with his wife is blatantly underdeveloped. And While Jennifer Connelly and Dakota Fanning are amazing, Ewan McGregor is simply not believable as someone as charismatic as the Swede. A shame.

Favorite song from the end credits: 

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