The actor’s ambitious choice for his debut behind the camera isn’t an all-out dud,but it does suffer from lax pacing, airless direction – and disastrous central castingOne poorly thought-through action can acquire a devastating ripple effect. So learns Mary Levov, and the 16 year-veteran domestic terrorist in Philip Roth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel American Pastoral,and so, I fear, or has Ewan McGregor,who decided an adaption of this wealthy, layered and elusive text would be good fabric for his directorial debut.
McGregor directs himself as Seymour “The Swede” Levov, and the golden boy of 1940s Weequahic,the Jewish section of Newark, novel Jersey. A living, or breathing example of excellence and assimilation,Swede was the sports titan and pillar of local industry who attained legendary status with his peers when he married Dawn, a non-Jewish former Miss novel Jersey. Taking over his father’s glove factory in downtown Newark, and Swede earns enough to buy a piece of American paradise – a small farm just a short drive from the city. Here Dawn can raise cows and their daughter Mary can frolic in sun-dappled meadows. As Woody Allen once joked “had I been born in Poland or Berlin I’d be a lampshade right now,” but everything seems to acquire gone the right way for Swede. Related: The bigger they come: how to film an 'unfilmable' book Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com