American Pastroral (2016)

I made a point of finally reading the novel that won Philip Roth his Pulitzer before this films release date last fall, ironically it never came to a theater here in the Salt Lake area, which combined with the films generally poor reviews kind of scared me a little, I've been burned by Roth adaptations before. However upon seeing this film I almost wonder if critics saw the same movie I did. I though it was wonderful, a good distillation of the novel if not quite on its level, which of course shouldn't be surprising with any adaptation. I though Ewan McGregor did a fine job of directing his first time out, and this wasn't a vanity exercise on his part either, he had wanted to play the lead role of Seymour "Swede" Levov for some time, but the films directors kept falling through so he took on the extra job primarily so that he could play that part, which he is also quite good in. Strong supporting performances from Jennifer Connelly and Dakota Fanning, David Strathairn is great as Nathan Zuckerman and should really record some Roth audio books. Most of the film was true to the source material and I didn't even mind that they somewhat changed the ending to make it work better on film. I was impressed. ***1/2