
Starring: Seth Rogen, Sarah Snook, Jorma Taccone, Sean Whalen, Joanna Adler, Eliot Glazer, Kalen Allen
OUR RATING: ★★★½
Story:
HBO Max comedy directed by Brandon Trost based short story “Sell Out” by Simon Rich. The story follows Herschel Greenbaum (Seth Rogen), an immigrant worker at a pickle factory. One day he falls into a vat of brine and stays there, perfectly preserved, for a hundred years. He comes back to life in modern day Brooklyn and decides to seek out his family and finds that his only surviving relative is his great-grandson, Ben Greenbaum (Seth Rogen), a mild-mannered computer programmer whom Herschel can’t even begin to understand.
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Our Favorite Quotes:
'It's never too late to do things completely differently.' - Liam (An American Pickle) Click To Tweet 'This is what we're reaching for, everybody. This is the dream. This is the goal. Perfect jar of pickle.' - Herschel Greenbaum (An American Pickle) Click To Tweet
Best Quotes
[first lines; in Schlupsk, Eastern Europe, 1919]
Herschel Greenbaum: [narrating] In old country of Schlupsk, I am ditch digger. It is not always great. Life is difficult. But then one day, Hashem gives me a miracle. Her name is Sarah. She is strong, and she has all her teeth. Top and bottom. I decide at once to woo her.
[in Yiddish]
Herschel Greenbaum: So do you come here often?
Sarah Greenbaum: No. Food is expensive and I am destitute.
Herschel Greenbaum: [narrating] Wooing fails, but I am determined to win her.
[referring to Sarah]
Herschel Greenbaum: [narrating] We have so much in common. Her favorite color black. My favorite color black. Her parents murdered by Cossacks. My parents murdered by Cossacks. I notice nice little thing about her. She always sneeze same way. Four time. Is adorable.
[in Yiddish]
Sarah Greenbaum: Sometimes I imagine that I work hard, and save, and become rich.
Herschel Greenbaum: How rich?
Sarah Greenbaum: Like “afford my own gravestone” rich!
Herschel Greenbaum: Woh.
[in Yiddish]
Sarah Greenbaum: What is your dream?
Herschel Greenbaum: Someday, before I die, I would like to try seltzer water. To feel the bubbles tickling my tongue.
Sarah Greenbaum: If people heard us talk this way, they would say we’re crazy.
[in Yiddish]
Herschel Greenbaum: I know a way for us to reach our dreams.
Sarah Greenbaum: How?
Herschel Greenbaum: Together.
Sarah Greenbaum: Together.
[Sarah puts her hand on Herschel’s shoulder]
Herschel Greenbaum: [narrating] The Cossacks destroy our whole world. But we are the Greenbaums. We are strong. And together there is no stopping us. We keep fighting till we have American dream.
[after arriving in America]
Herschel Greenbaum: [narrating] I find good job in pickle factory. A good Jewish business. The foreman will not let me mix salt. Or sort cucumber. But he says I can chase rats with club and he will pay nickel for every ten Herschel smash. It is not dream job. But I am grateful for chance to prove my worth.
[as he sees a seltzer water vendor in the street]
Herschel Greenbaum: [narrating] Some things still out of reach. But over time we work and save. I grant Sarah’s wish. A beautiful Greenbaum family plot for us to share. Forever.
[making a vow to a pregnant Sarah]
Herschel Greenbaum: Our child will be strong. And our child’s child will be strong. Our family will prosper. And in one hundred years, the Greenbaums will be powerful. Successful. The strongest in the land. And then one day, everything changed.
[after Herschel falls into a vat of brine and wakes up a hundred years later]
Scientist: Essentially, the pickle brine preserved him perfectly. It’s been a hundred years, but he hasn’t aged a day.
Reporter: That’s impossible.
Second Reporter: You don’t honestly expect us to buy that, do you?
Third Reporter: What’s the science behind it?
Scientist: Please, let me explain.
Herschel Greenbaum: [narrating] The scientist explains. His logic is good. It satisfies everyone. But I’m very sad. The world has changed. Everything I know is gone. And everyone.
Herschel Greenbaum: [narrating] My Sarah is gone. Our child is gone. I have nothing. Then I get some great news.
[after his great-grandson, Ben, has been found]
Herschel Greenbaum: [narrating] I am so excited I forget all my misery. Even though I have not met this Ben, I can see him in my mind. He will be just like how I vowed to Sarah. Powerful. Successful. The strongest in the land.
[when he sees Ben for the first time]
Herschel Greenbaum: Greenbaum?
Ben Greenbaum: Greenbaum! Greenbaum!
[they embrace]
Ben Greenbaum: Alright! This is nuts.
[referring to Ben’s apartment]
Herschel Greenbaum: All this yours?
Ben Greenbaum: Yeah. I mean, I don’t own it, or anything like that. I do live here by myself. I work from home though, a lot. It would be nice, honestly, to have someone around. So you can stay here as long as you want, man.
Herschel Greenbaum: I do not want to be burden to you.
Ben Greenbaum: It’s not a burden, Herschel. At all. I mean, I’m amazed you’re alive. I really never thought I would get a chance to meet another Greenbaum, so.
Herschel Greenbaum: Neither did I.
Ben Greenbaum: [to Herschel] You must be thirsty. I mean, you were brined for like a century. And there’s salt in brine, right? So you must be pretty parched, to say the least. Can I get you something to drink? Macadamia milk? Or there’s cashew milk. I got pea milk. They’re milking peas now. They’re milking everything these days, dude. You name it, they’re milking it.
Ben Greenbaum: There must be something I can get you. Would you like some seltzer?
Herschel Greenbaum: [shocked] You have seltzer.
Ben Greenbaum: Oh, I got seltzer for days, son. I got a whole seltzer machine. It’s pretty cool actually.
[referring to the seltzer machine]
Ben Greenbaum: You want to press it?
Herschel Greenbaum: You’ll let me press seltzer button?
Ben Greenbaum: Yeah. It’s a pretty big deal, but we’re family. So you can press the seltzer button. Knock yourself out.
[Herschel sticks his finger out and presses the button]
Ben Greenbaum: Yeah! There you go. You’re seltzering.
Ben Greenbaum: This is a scooter.
Herschel Greenbaum: You have legs. You do not need this thing.
Ben Greenbaum: That is a weirdly inappropriate thing to say.
[after Herschel asks him how many socks he has]
Ben Greenbaum: I have like twenty, twenty-five pairs of socks.
Herschel Greenbaum: Twenty-five socks! Twenty-five.
Ben Greenbaum: It’s a lot of socks.
Herschel Greenbaum: You only have two feet, right?
Ben Greenbaum: No, it’s just these.
Herschel Greenbaum: Ben Greenbaum. Owner of twenty-five pair of sock.
Ben Greenbaum: It’s pretty normal for today.
Herschel Greenbaum: Tell me, what is it you do for job? Wait, let me guess. You’re a doctor. No. You’re a lawyer.
Ben Greenbaum: No. Close. Freelance mobile app developer.
Herschel Greenbaum: What?
[trying to explain to Herschel the app he’s developed]
Ben Greenbaum: But let me ask you this, before people buy something, what’s something they wish they knew?
Herschel Greenbaum: How long has meat been dead for?
Ben Greenbaum: Yeah, that. Also, they want to know whether or not the company they’re buying from is ethical.
Herschel Greenbaum: They do?
Ben Greenbaum: Yes. They do. It’s called “conscientious shopping”. It’s very popular. My app makes it very easy.
[referring to the name of his app]
Ben Greenbaum: It’s called Boop Bop.
Herschel Greenbaum: Why Boop Bop?
Ben Greenbaum: You know, it’s kind of just like the trend, I guess, these days, to give apps like silly names. You know, Venmo, Hulu, Hipmunk.
[pointing to a poster of David Bowie on Ben’s wall]
Herschel Greenbaum: Is this your father?
Ben Greenbaum: No, that’s David Bowie.
Herschel Greenbaum: Is this your mother?
Ben Greenbaum: No, that’s also David Bowie. That whole poster is David Bowie.
Herschel Greenbaum: How come in this whole place you have so many things, but no pictures of the family?
Ben Greenbaum: I have pictures of my family. I just haven’t really, you know, like framed them or incorporated them in my design.
[as Ben is showing Herschel pictures of his parents]
Herschel Greenbaum: Who is this very shapely young woman here?
Ben Greenbaum: That’s me.
[referring to the photo]
Herschel Greenbaum: These are your parents. Where are they?
Ben Greenbaum: They passed away.
Herschel Greenbaum: I’m very sorry. Murdered or regular?
Ben Greenbaum: It was a car crash.
Herschel Greenbaum: So regular.
[referring to Ben’s parents]
Herschel Greenbaum: You will tell me everything of their death so I may bear witness to your grief. How their bodies died, their faces as the life left. Be very specific. Spare no detail. We will bond over our pain. No detail too small.
Ben Greenbaum: We don’t have to get into that right now.
Ben Greenbaum: I’m not very religious.
Herschel Greenbaum: You do not know Mourner’s Kaddish?
Ben Greenbaum: Not anymore, no.
Herschel Greenbaum: How do you grieve for dead parents if you do not say prayer for dead?
Ben Greenbaum: I’m doing okay.
Herschel Greenbaum: I do not understand. You were raised Jew.
Ben Greenbaum: Yeah.
Herschel Greenbaum: Are you not still Jew?
Ben Greenbaum: Technically. I also had a Jumanji themed bar mitzvah. It’s not like I was that religious in the first place. Also like organized religion is very regressive.
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Trailer: