It’s just your average movie about an American immigrant in the 1920s who falls into a vat of pickles and wakes up, perfectly preserved, in 2020.
Seth Rogen stars in An American Pickle as said immigrant, who collapses in said pickle vat, waking up in said year. The film has an additional twist, in that his character’s one surviving relative is his great grandson—who looks identical to him, and is also played by Rogen.
An American Pickle launched on HBO in America on August 6, never arriving in cinemas due to the coronavirus. Given that HBO isn’t available in Australia, this begs the question: how can we watch it in Australia?
The good news is that the film has a confirmed Australian release date, slated to arrive in cinemas on September 24. So you won’t be able to stream it for a while—but you will be able to see it on the big screen.
The Atlantic called the film “both salty and sweet, with plenty of acerbic jabs at our modern condition.” The Los Angeles Time said it “gestures toward controversial ideas but always swerves back to a simple but profound message of togetherness and family.”
In addition to Rogen the film also stars Sarah Snook, Molly Evensen, Eliot Glazer, Kalen Allen, Kevin O’Rourke and Sean Whalen.
Here is the official plot synopsis:
Adapted by Simon Rich from his 2013 New Yorker novella Sell Out, An American Pickle stars Rogen as Herschel Greenbaum, a struggling laborer who immigrates to America in 1919 with dreams of building a better life for his beloved family. One day, while working at his factory job, he falls into a vat of pickles and is brined for 100 years. The brine preserves him perfectly and when he emerges in present day Brooklyn, he finds that he hasn’t aged a day. But when he seeks out his family, he is troubled to learn that his only surviving relative is his great-grandson Ben Greenbaum (also played by Rogen), a mild-mannered computer coder whom Herschel can’t even begin to understand.
