An American Pickle Might Have Been Fresher in the 2010s

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The new comedy An American Pickle is also about the challenge of explaining the new world to someone from the past.

Adapted from a serialized novella by Simon Rich called Sell Out, An American Pickle is first and foremost a goofy Rip Van Winkle update (or Encino Man update) with Seth Rogen as a cranky old-timey Jewish man named Herschel Greenbaum, who comes to the United States around 1919, takes a job at a pickle factory in Williamsburg killing rats, and subsequently gets stuck in a pickle vat for a century.

(Herschel, accustomed to the dismal tribulations of peasant life in the fictional Eastern Europe country of Schlupsk, scoffs at Ben’s fixation on creating a mobile app named “Boop Bop” and his reluctance to outwardly mourn his dead family; Ben resents Herschel for ruining a business opportunity.) They feud.

(Mostly at Herschel, who gets all the best lines. He marvels over seltzer and extra pairs of socks with an infectious, unfettered glee. His rationale for being a shoo-in for running a pickle business is “I was pickle.”).

The Brooklyn stereotypes An American Pickle is trying to skewer might’ve been fresh when Sell Out was written, but are now long past their expiration date, to the point where they’re distracting.