An American Pickle Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

1. Nami Melumad's Folksy Musical Score

Another area where so many comedies fall short of the mark is with their original music, often opting for generically whimsical soundtracks or, more frequently, just relying on existing pop hits to fill the void.

But An American Pickle is blessed with a jaunty folk score from Nami Melumad (with themes provided by Michael Giacchino), which combines an orchestral swell with instrumentation actually practised by the Ashkenazi Jews 100 years ago.

The score does a subtle yet effective job of accentuating the overall mood, switching from peppy and sweeping to downcast and tragic as the material calls for it.

Considering that a solid 90% of comedy movies have no memorable original music whatsoever, Melamud's work here is basically a low-key miracle.