?: a review of "A Serious Man"

As I will soon post my favorite films of 2009, I would like to include some reviews from the archives.

This review was originally written October 25, 2009

“A SERIOUS MAN” Written, Produced and Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
**** (4 stars)

The high rating I have bestowed upon this film has not come easily or lightly. My admiration and appreciation for this film is more than evident but I am still not sure how much I actually liked it. Perhaps the fullness of my determination will come in time. I will even venture to gather that “A Serious Man,” the latest effort from the supremely talented Coen brothers, is quite possibly their most confounding experience where upon its final frames, the cumulative result left me and my companion with a resounding “WTF?!?!” expression. As I continue and continue to ponder exactly what “A Serious Man” all meant, what its intents and purposes could’ve been, I still feel as if I have been led down a blind alley which took me to a rabbit hole where ultimately nothing is discovered once the other side has been reached. Perhaps the meaning is that there is no meaning at all. Who knows?

This is the very conundrum experienced by Larry Gopnick (played by Michael Stuhlbarg), a mathematician and university professor who lives, with his family, in a middle class suburban community in Minnesota, circa 1967. Poor Larry is trapped in a world he never made as he is confounded by the obstacles and enigmas life has seemingly hurled solely in his direction. His vindictive wife (Sari Lennick) is having an affair with the unctuous and duplicitously supportive Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed) and subsequently wants a divorce. His daughter, obsessed with her hair, is also stealing his money for a possible nose job. His perpetually stoned son Danny (Aaron Wolf) is preparing for his Bar Mitzvah while also running from the Hebrew school’s drug dealer and trying to retrieve his confiscated transistor radio on which contains the money needed to pay off said drug dealer. His brother Arthur (a terrific Richard Kind) is the family’s layabout who endlessly monopolizes the family bathroom yet he is also a genius mathematician and mental capacities are becoming more and more unhinged. And at all times, Larry is viewed by his family not as a man with any sense of emotional influence or council but as a cipher, a human jellyfish, removed of its sting, and meant to be manipulated at all times for any whim even as trivial as fixing the TV antennae for a clearer picture of “F Troop.”

And his problems do not cease at the home front. Larry’s desires for tenure are at odds with a collection of anonymous and seemingly damaging letters that are being sent to the university. He is constantly being hounded by telephone calls demanding payment for rock albums he has not ordered from the Columbia Record House, an organization he inadvertently became a member of simply by NOT denying membership. He is also being simultaneously bribed, and extorted by a South Korean math student to whom he has given a failing grade. And finally, each moment of resolve and understanding he seeks by the community Rabbis, including the almost diabolically secretive Marshak (Alan Mandell), leaves him more confused and anguished than ever. Even his dreams provide no safety or respite. Larry Gopnick is seemingly a nihilistically bleak cosmic joke as the more solace and control he seeks, the universe responds equally in the opposite and as the walls and jaws of live continue to converge upon his gentle spirit, the film becomes an intensely dark paranoid comedy. Parables, introduced to deliver spiritual answers and deliverance, in the end offer nothing. Playing by the honorable rules of social morality ends up rewarding with cruel vengeance. And THEN, there’s the film’s head-scratcher of an ending which has redefined the meaning of abrupt.

I have to admit that the Coen brothers are on a roll right now with their third film in as many years that has presented a bleaker world view than any of the films of their past. The brutal “No Country For Old Men” was quite possibly a study of the unstoppable and ever changing face of unrelenting evil. “Burn After Reading,” while a tad lighter in tone, seemed to be an exploration of how humanity’s increasing sense of narcissistic stupidity will be our collective undoing. Now, we reach “A Serious Man,” where we find a good man desperately trying to maintain control over events he has no control over. He continues to seek meaning when there possibly isn’t any meaning anyway because once you’re dead, you’re dead and who cares? The Coen brothers, time and again, have created their own cinematic worlds unlike any others and this film is no exception. They have again proven to be born filmmakers and storytellers with exemplary writing and searingly strong direction, editing, cinematography, tonality and pacing. The cast is uniformly excellent and Michael Stuhlbarg gives a wonderful performance that never makes Larry a sad sack, a dolt or one the audience can laugh at. He is a kindly man with a hopeful outlook even when he is about to fall down life’s chasm. The film also possesses a wicked sense of humor, fatalistic or otherwise. Jefferson Airplane’s classic “Somebody To Love” figures prominently and in several unexpected fashions. A Rabbi’s fable set to Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun” also contributes to the topsy-turvy proceedings. Wet dreams turn sinister and fatal. A sequence featuring Danny’s Bar Mitzvah is a show-stopper. But, the creeping footsteps of fate are always present, barreling down on Larry like an unending curse. The result is surreal, unsettling and unnerving and the Coens are masters at the game they have set into play.

Much has been written about how this film is a modern day version of the Book Of Job, or an exploration of Jewish symbolism and teachings or even an autobiographical tale of the Coen’s upbringing. Maybe so but not more or less than “Fargo” was supposedly based on real events or how “O Brother, Where Art Thou” was supposedly based upon Homer’s “Odyssey.” Maybe none of that even matters at all.

What I do know is that Joel and Ethan Coen have not rested on their respective laurels in the least after winning their Oscar two years ago. In fact, they have become even more uncompromising as they have given us another film where they offer no loopholes of any kind to the audience to help us along or to provide safety nets. I believe that they are respecting their audience enough to give us non-disposable art that allows and encourages us to do the heavy lifting. Or maybe the Coens are having a dark laugh on us all.

The film opens with the notation, “Receive with simplicity everything that happens.” On that sentiment, this film is simply a success on several levels. It is a feature length “Why Me?” that deeply resonates and refuses to be ignored. It is challenging, playful, infuriating, and builds to a crescendo of awesome power that…well…I’m just not sure.

But, I know I will not forget it.