In Brendan Trost’s An American Pickle, Seth Rogen gets to play one of the craziest and funniest characters in his career as Herschel Greenbaum: an early 19th century European immigrant who gets trapped in a pickle barrel for a century and awakens to discover a whole new world. Herschel’s philosophies in many respects don’t quite line up with modern morality and progressive thought, and it results in some over-the-top consequences.
As it exists, the movie takes some big comedic swings – which is why it was surprising to recently learn that early drafts took things even further.