The Pickle
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''The Pickle'' is a 1993 film produced, written, and directed by
Paul Mazursky Irwin Lawrence "Paul" Mazursky (April 25, 1930 – June 30, 2014) was an American film director, screenwriter, and actor. Known for his dramatic comedies that often dealt with modern social issues, he was nominated for five Academy Awards: three t ...
, telling the story of a formerly powerful film director whose recent string of flops has forced him to make a commercial piece that is artistically uninspired. The absurdity of the
film within the film A story within a story, also referred to as an embedded narrative, is a literary device in which a character within a story becomes the narrator of a second story (within the first one). Multiple layers of stories within stories are sometimes c ...
satirizes big-budget Hollywood pictures, while the rest of the story serves as a character study of fictitious film director Harry Stone.


Plot

Danny Aiello stars as Harry Stone, an NYC film director who has been living in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
,
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
for the past ten years. Despite the fact that he still has a loyal fan base, his last three films were flops, and he returns to New York to hear a pitch from a studio executive. The movie turns out to be ''The Pickle'', a science fiction film with an absurd storyline, but when the executive offers him "a ton of money," Harry immediately sells out his better judgment and agrees to direct the picture. Aside from a few flashbacks to Harry's childhood, and to the events leading up to the making of ''The Pickle'', most of the story takes place on the day of the new film's premiere. Harry is reunited with his agent, publicist, son, daughter, mother, and ex-wives (both of whom are still on good terms with Harry), and the movie explores these relationships in various combinations; Harry's Parisian girlfriend also plays a major role. Despite Harry's stress about the upcoming premiere—he regrets selling out to make ''The Pickle'', and fears that it will ruin his career—the director spends time to enjoy the people in his life.


Harry's Career

Dialogue establishes several details about Harry's career: His biggest success was a Western called ''Blue Sands''; his most recent film, ''Paradise Jack'', was a hit with his fans, but trashed by the critics and a disappointment at the box office. Harry had ambitions to make cinematic adaptations of ''
Anna Karenina ''Anna Karenina'' ( rus, «Анна Каренина», p=ˈanːə kɐˈrʲenʲɪnə) is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Widely considered to be one of the greatest works of literature ever writte ...
'' and ''
Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry "Huck" Finn is a fictional character created by Mark Twain who first appeared in the book ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876) and is the protagonist and narrator of its sequel, ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884). He is 12 ...
'', but funding fell through after the
box office disappointment A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...
of ''Paradise Jack''. His dream project is to direct an epic about Cortez and Montezuma starring
Dustin Hoffman Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is th ...
(despite his admission that Hoffman is too old for either role), but he angrily balks when a studio executive suggests updating the story to a present-day L.A.
barrio ''Barrio'' () is a Spanish language, Spanish word that means "Quarter (urban subdivision), quarter" or "neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city, usually delimited by functional (e.g. residenti ...
. The success of ''The Pickle'' leads the executive to greenlight the Cortez/Montezuma film, but Harry instead pitches a drama with a storyline loosely mirroring the events of his own return to New York.


The Movie Within the Movie

The movie featured within the movie—also called ''The Pickle''—involves a group of farmers who grow a pickle to gigantic proportions and convert it into a spaceship, which they fly into outer space. They land on a planet nearly identical to Earth, where one of the farmers (played by
Ally Sheedy Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy (born June 13, 1962) is an American actress. Following her film debut in 1983's '' Bad Boys'', she became known as one of the Brat Pack group of actors and starred in ''WarGames'' (1983), ''The Breakfast Club'' (1985) ...
) develops a romance with an advisor to the
President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
. (The President is played by
Little Richard Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), known professionally as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Described as the " ...
as himself, and performs an impromptu rendition of "
Good Golly, Miss Molly "Good Golly, Miss Molly" is a hit rock 'n' roll song first recorded in 1956 by the American musician Little Richard and released in January 1958 as Specialty single 624 and next in July 1958 on ''Little Richard''. The song, a jump blues, was wri ...
".) The romance is ended when Sheedy decides that, as a vegetarian, she cannot live on a planet where all food is made out of flies.


Cast


Critical reception

On
review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
''The Pickle'' holds an approval rating of 20% based on 5 reviews, with an average rating of 4.4/10.
Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...
of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'':
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' gave the film 2 stars out of 4 on his rating scale: The film was a box-office failure, and Mazursky never directed a film based on his own screenplay again.


References


External links

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Official trailer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pickle, The 1993 films American comedy-drama films Columbia Pictures films Films scored by Michel Legrand Films about film directors and producers Films set in New York City Films shot in New York City Films directed by Paul Mazursky 1990s English-language films 1990s American films Films about the film industry