A SERIOUS MAN, the latest film from the Coen Brothers, is fantastic. Not only that, it is so rich in subtext that I have no business writing about it so soon after seeing it. There's just too much to take in; the film is deceivingly simple until you start thinking about it.
Michael Stuhlbarg is Larry Gopnik, a small-town Midwestern college professor plastering the gigantic chalk board in his classroom with impossible mathematical equasions that are perfectly logical and tidy to him. If only the same could be said of his life. Literally every member of the Gopnik family is a study in melodrama. His wife is leaving him for a widower who is a longtime family friend. She frequently imposes on Larry to sit down for business-like meetings with the other man himself, who speaks calmly to Larry and even embrases him to console him as if he's an outsider who can't believe this is happening to Larry, either. His son is on thin ice in Hebrew school, preparing for his bar mitzvah but distracted by the Jefferson Airplane pumping in his ear via a contraband transistor radio in class. His daughter steals money - she wants a nose job - and can't be around her brother without fighting. And Larry's own brother, a directionless louse, is living with the family and getting into a variety of troubles with the law.
In addition to all of this, Larry is being blackmailed and bribed by a Korean student who refuses a failing grade in his class. So much is going wrong in Larry's life, in fact, that we completely forget about where we first see him when his story begins after the film's prologue until it reenters the story at the end.
There's no denying that Larry is a 1960s version of Job. So fantastically Jewish is A SERIOUS MAN that religious references are invited and, to some extent, an understanding of them is required. As I am fantastically un-Jewish, the Gopnik family was as quirky and foreign to me as the characters in "Fargo." In fact, this film reminds me of that masterpiece in many ways, from the ridiculously perfect and lived-in character performances to the parallels between Larry and Fargo's Jerry Lundegaard as men who are helpless in their own lives and unable to gain ground. Certainly the humor in A SERIOUS MAN is as dark and intelligent as that in "Fargo." Indeed, what happens to the main character here is equally serious and heartbreaking. In some ways, it's as dramatic as their Oscar-winning "No Country For Old Men."
As I mentioned, the performances in this film are fantastic, especially Stuhlbarg and Sari Lennick, a newcomer whose tart glances and stern condescension make her a secret riot as Larry's wife, Judith. She reminded me of Frances McDormand's work in "Fargo," another favorable comparison between the two films. Essentially, the most reconizable actor in A SERIOUS MAN is likely Simon Helberg (Wolowitz on "The Big Bang Theory"), if you don't recognize two David E. Kelly TV alums, Adam Arkin and Fyvush Finkel.
I suspect that many filmviewing goys will be off-put by the extreme "Jewishness" of A SERIOUS MAN if they're unwilling to let it wash over them. I loved it. I am not Catholic, either, and the culture in this film reminded me of the opening scene of "Doubt" when Meryl Streep's nun was keeping kids in line during the priest's homily. You start out not knowing the culture but eventually, you come to understand a little something about it.
Most likely, the Coen Brothers are cashing in here on the capital they've acrued as Oscar-winners in the picture, director and screenwriting categories. Though I know little about their personal lives, A SERIOUS MAN seems intensely autobiographical. It is a film about the suburbs but reminds us that the suburbs can be soul-crushing and as devestating as the deserted West is in "No Country For Old Men."
There are things I'll appreciate more about A SERIOUS MAN when I get to see it again. As I said before, I probably shouldn't be reviewing it so soon after seeing it. I'm not positive that I get the connection between the film's old-world Yiddish prologue and the family (though I think I get it). I'm not recently brushed up on the book of Job, so some of those references might have gone by me too. And, in what is certainly a Coen Brothers trademark, the ending is offputting, sudden and unsatisfying. It was a reason why some people said they hated "No Country..." while I defended that ending as perfect. This time, my instant response was "Huh? Not sure I liked that." And now as I sit here pondering that ending (which of course I won't reveal to you here), it's starting to become more and more perfect. The film ends with our suburban hero getting a few more helpings of shit sandwich. Another sinister Coen joke. And I'm reminded that these guys are brilliant when it comes to endings that stick with you longer than most films exactly because they are unfinished, unsatisfying and confusing.
While I enjoyed "Burn After Reading," that film felt a little lightweight in some ways. This one feels important, all the moreso because the simplicity with which it is delivered allows its messages to breathe. Cinematographer Roger Deakins shows his genius once again, too. He is the third Coen Brother, for sure.
In the end, A SERIOUS MAN might be one of my favorite Coen Brothers films of the decade, and what a decade they had! Makes me excited for the next one.
4.0 out of 4
Michael Stuhlbarg is Larry Gopnik, a small-town Midwestern college professor plastering the gigantic chalk board in his classroom with impossible mathematical equasions that are perfectly logical and tidy to him. If only the same could be said of his life. Literally every member of the Gopnik family is a study in melodrama. His wife is leaving him for a widower who is a longtime family friend. She frequently imposes on Larry to sit down for business-like meetings with the other man himself, who speaks calmly to Larry and even embrases him to console him as if he's an outsider who can't believe this is happening to Larry, either. His son is on thin ice in Hebrew school, preparing for his bar mitzvah but distracted by the Jefferson Airplane pumping in his ear via a contraband transistor radio in class. His daughter steals money - she wants a nose job - and can't be around her brother without fighting. And Larry's own brother, a directionless louse, is living with the family and getting into a variety of troubles with the law.
In addition to all of this, Larry is being blackmailed and bribed by a Korean student who refuses a failing grade in his class. So much is going wrong in Larry's life, in fact, that we completely forget about where we first see him when his story begins after the film's prologue until it reenters the story at the end.
There's no denying that Larry is a 1960s version of Job. So fantastically Jewish is A SERIOUS MAN that religious references are invited and, to some extent, an understanding of them is required. As I am fantastically un-Jewish, the Gopnik family was as quirky and foreign to me as the characters in "Fargo." In fact, this film reminds me of that masterpiece in many ways, from the ridiculously perfect and lived-in character performances to the parallels between Larry and Fargo's Jerry Lundegaard as men who are helpless in their own lives and unable to gain ground. Certainly the humor in A SERIOUS MAN is as dark and intelligent as that in "Fargo." Indeed, what happens to the main character here is equally serious and heartbreaking. In some ways, it's as dramatic as their Oscar-winning "No Country For Old Men."
As I mentioned, the performances in this film are fantastic, especially Stuhlbarg and Sari Lennick, a newcomer whose tart glances and stern condescension make her a secret riot as Larry's wife, Judith. She reminded me of Frances McDormand's work in "Fargo," another favorable comparison between the two films. Essentially, the most reconizable actor in A SERIOUS MAN is likely Simon Helberg (Wolowitz on "The Big Bang Theory"), if you don't recognize two David E. Kelly TV alums, Adam Arkin and Fyvush Finkel.
I suspect that many filmviewing goys will be off-put by the extreme "Jewishness" of A SERIOUS MAN if they're unwilling to let it wash over them. I loved it. I am not Catholic, either, and the culture in this film reminded me of the opening scene of "Doubt" when Meryl Streep's nun was keeping kids in line during the priest's homily. You start out not knowing the culture but eventually, you come to understand a little something about it.
Most likely, the Coen Brothers are cashing in here on the capital they've acrued as Oscar-winners in the picture, director and screenwriting categories. Though I know little about their personal lives, A SERIOUS MAN seems intensely autobiographical. It is a film about the suburbs but reminds us that the suburbs can be soul-crushing and as devestating as the deserted West is in "No Country For Old Men."
There are things I'll appreciate more about A SERIOUS MAN when I get to see it again. As I said before, I probably shouldn't be reviewing it so soon after seeing it. I'm not positive that I get the connection between the film's old-world Yiddish prologue and the family (though I think I get it). I'm not recently brushed up on the book of Job, so some of those references might have gone by me too. And, in what is certainly a Coen Brothers trademark, the ending is offputting, sudden and unsatisfying. It was a reason why some people said they hated "No Country..." while I defended that ending as perfect. This time, my instant response was "Huh? Not sure I liked that." And now as I sit here pondering that ending (which of course I won't reveal to you here), it's starting to become more and more perfect. The film ends with our suburban hero getting a few more helpings of shit sandwich. Another sinister Coen joke. And I'm reminded that these guys are brilliant when it comes to endings that stick with you longer than most films exactly because they are unfinished, unsatisfying and confusing.
While I enjoyed "Burn After Reading," that film felt a little lightweight in some ways. This one feels important, all the moreso because the simplicity with which it is delivered allows its messages to breathe. Cinematographer Roger Deakins shows his genius once again, too. He is the third Coen Brother, for sure.
In the end, A SERIOUS MAN might be one of my favorite Coen Brothers films of the decade, and what a decade they had! Makes me excited for the next one.
4.0 out of 4
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