An American Pickle Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

3. The Sharp Cinematography

If modern comedies catch plenty of flak for typically being visually unremarkable, Rogen's films tend to stand out as exceptions, with many of them actually looking cinematic rather than like grossly overlit sitcoms.

An American Pickle is the directorial debut of Brandon Trost, who has served as cinematographer on some of the better-looking mainstream comedies of the last decade, including This Is the End, The Interview, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, The Disaster Artist, and both Neighbors movies.

Trost has a real eye for making even basic scene setups look rich and vibrant, and though he passed lensing duties off to John Guleserian (Love, Simon) here, his knack for enticing visuals has served him well.

The opening 1920-set scenes are especially evocative, though for its entirety the film avoids looking like just another identikit studio comedy.