Reviews
A Serious Man
November 20 2009
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed
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The Coen brothers sure know how to frustrate. From the early days of Raising Arizona’s curveball punchline (“I don’t know. Maybe it was Utah?”) to last year’s oddly pointless Burn After Reading (“I’m fucked if I know what we did!”), this is a duo who lead audiences down uniquely twisted paths only to leave them a little stranded, reluctant to explain the journey. A Serious Man is no different, yet none the worse for it. Ultimately, frustration is the point.
Stay for the closing credits and there’s a disclaimer that hints at the brothers’ thinking: ‘No Jews were harmed in the making of this picture.’ It could almost be the film’s subtitle. This is the Coens at their most cheeky and personal, placing the story in their hometown Jewish suburb of St Louis Park, Minnesota, circa-1967.
It’s a very American – very Jewish-American – setting, but any fan of Woody Allen will relish the blend of nebbish guilt and dark laughs (there’s even a nod to Woody’s legendary ‘Moose’ stand-up routine.) The suffocating social anxiety of The Graduate, made the year that this is set, also looms large.
After the star-laden weight of Burn After Reading, A Serious Man is leaner. Stage actor Michael Stuhlbarg takes the lead as Larry Gopnik, a mild-mannered physics teacher whose average life – family, job, neat house and garden – slips out of his grip when divorce, teenage rebellion and workplace bullying suddenly trip up his comfortable existence. With his socially autistic brother (Richard Kind) and a lustful neighbour (Amy Landecker) also preying on his mind, Larry wonders whether he can ever be the kind of upstanding individual that his ethnicity demands of him.
For proof of comedy and tragedy’s close relationship, watch this. Larry is essentially having a nervous breakdown yet it’s the Coens’ most humanely funny script in years. While the faith-specific elements might deter some, the gallery of grotesques are broad enough to widely appeal. Rabbis, school principles, Uncle Arthur with his sebaceous cyst – no social institutions are safe, yet without them Larry knows that his life would be even more unwieldy. Relative unknowns keep star baggage to a minimum allowing warmly honest performances. When Stuhlbarg’s nerdy Larry balances precariously on his roof to watch his neighbour sunbathing, there’s a genuine haplessness that a ‘movie star’ would struggle to replicate.
A bizarre prologue to the piece, a nineteenth-century urban legend spoken in Yiddish, might encourage the main feature to be seen as a parable but returning to that end credit disclaimer, A Serious Man is the Coens’ least serious film for a long time. Using the hilariously random existentialism that we’ve come to expect, this is their reminder that it’s pointless to try and control the events of your life. Frustrating? Of course. But that’s always good for a laugh.
Anticipation:
Enjoyment:
In Retrospect:
The Coen Brothers back on form? YES! Can't wait to see this.
I think we can all admit it now, Burn After Reading was rubbish.
Written by John D on November 20th, 2009 at 17:09
God, this films good.
Written by Jack C on November 20th, 2009 at 17:43
I can't admit that… I thought it was as hilarious as a satire of Bush-era American idiocy could be.
One of the (many) great things about the Coens is that they are almost never off form, exactly – just always exploring new forms. Even their 'off' films are a good deal better than the average stuff in our cinemas.
Written by Anton Bitel on November 20th, 2009 at 18:05
Burn After Reading was pretty gash. I hear that The Lady Killers was a misjudged side step too. A Serious Man is amazing though the use of sound throughout the film left me a gog. Loved it and could have watched another couple of hours of it easy.
Written by horatioalgar on November 25th, 2009 at 16:31
this fim was anything but funny…
seen it all before,, "existentialist middle age man" is there anything new and unpredictable in a 21st century movie now days>? whats so funny or interesting a bout a dysfunctional jewish family ? perhaps is it is to the Cohen brothers. the gags in this film were waiting to happen filled with so many cliches from american humor.
can i have my 90 minute back please?
Written by sam on December 3rd, 2009 at 18:48
…but family dysfunction is (or at least can be) funny – that's why the family sit-com format has proved such a perennial favourite, stretching from the Simpsons almost as far back in time as that other Homer guy.
What is new here (apart from the milieu – and in cinematic terms, the Minnesotan Jewish community of the 1960s certainly does represent terra incognita) is the way that the Coens take the sort of neurotic uncertainties – physical, moral, existential, tribal and spiritual – that are typically found in horror, and turn them into comedy gold. Given the gravity of its themes, A Serious Man really should have been 'anything but funny' – and yet I laughed more than I have in any other film of 2009…
Written by Anton Bitel on December 4th, 2009 at 09:44
I was going to watchthis film whilst ironing but got totally bored it was like watching paint dry.
Written by Ann on February 14th, 2010 at 17:58