A Serious Man
As a longtime Coen Bros. fan, who has been deeply disappointed in their recent work (‘Intolerable Cruelty’, ‘The Ladykillers’ and ‘Burn After Reading’, their “Ugh Trilogy”), I was surprised at how much I was surprised by this film. Because I was out of town I wasn’t able to see the film until last weekend which makes ‘A Serious Man’ the first Coen film since ‘The Big Lebowski’ that I didn’t see on opening weekend. All of this worked to the films advantage.
‘A Serious Man’ is a black comedy set in 1967 about Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern professor who watches his life unravel. His wife wants a divorce, his kids only want his money or to adjust the television antenna, and a student attemps to bribe him as his tenure acceptance is called into question. The setup seems classic Coen, (or even John Hughes who also relished putting his characters in situations that get impossibly worse), but the film has a tone all it’s own.
The cast is unknowns who are familiar faces at best, (a fantastic change of pace from the star studded mugging of ‘Burn After Reading’), and only helps the believability of this world. Michael Stuhlbarg is great in the lead and you really feel for him every step of the way. The time and place is so specific (and so Jewish!) I wish I had known some of the more inside jokes, but I like that the film doesn’t stop to explain them. If you get it, great and if you don’t the film doesn’t care.
The film shows how absurd and futile religious institutions are and acts as a morality play. The ending is shocking and unexpected and the fact that it ends where it does makes me admire the film even more. Stacking this and ‘No Country For Old Men’ together gives me hope we still haven’t seen everything the Coens are capable of.
