AMERICAN PASTORAL

American Pastoral, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Philip Roth and adapted by John Romano, depicts a time of great political turmoil and the ensuing collapse of the all-American family and the American dream. The tragic story of Swede is elegantly told in retrospect after his death, in conversation between Nathan Zuckerman, a former classmate, and Swede’s brother Jerry, who bump into each other at a high-school reunion.

Seymor "Swede" Levov is a prosperous Jewish-American businessman, leading a happily conventional upper-middle class life in Newark, New Jersey with former beauty-queen wife Dawn and teenage daughter Merry. The picture-perfect family life is overturned when the increasingly frustrated Merry becomes politically radicalized and involved in an anti-Vietnam War protest rally with fatal consequences.

Through a combination of Jerry's disclosures and Zuckerman's own recollections of his fleeting encounters with Seymour, a complex portrait is gradually constructed, one that speaks to the experience of not simply one man, but rather of an entire generation struggling to comprehend the dissolution of a dream.

Arriving as the world grapples with a new period of chaos, American Pastoral offers a bold vision of history that doubles as a mirror to the present.

EWAN MCGREGOR

 

Ewan Gordon McGregor (born 1971 in Perth, Scotland) is one of the most critically acclaimed actors of his generation. He studied at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He was brought to the public’s attention in two films directed by Danny Boyle, Shallow Grave (1994) and Trainspotting (1996). Over the years, he created many memorable roles in leading Hollywood productions.

He has also worked in theatre as well as on television and has lent his voice to animated films.

American pastoral (2016) marks his directorial debut.