We already reviewed “A Serious Man,” at TIFF, but it’s so good, another writer had to put his two cents down as well.
The Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man” begins with a bizarre prologue, set in Poland a century removed from the main story. This sequence, shot in 1.33:1 (while the rest is in glorious widescreen), is a Jewish folk tale about the kindness of strangers and the meaningless of life (or something). And in its spooky, spiritual way, this sequence sets the tone for the rest of the movie — one in which faith and the fucked-up-ness of everyday life collide in a typically Coens-y way.
After the credits, we are met with the story’s main thrust, centering on a Jewish family in 1967 Midwest suburbia. Larry Gopnik (superb stage actor Michael Stuhlbarg) seems to be doing just fine: he’s got a family, slightly strained by his brother Arthur (Richard Kind) and his constant monopolization of the bathroom, but otherwise just fine. His son (Aaron Wolff) is about to become a man; he’s about to be tenured at his college; and otherwise doesn’t feel like the cosmos are prosecuting him. And then his life turns to shit.
In short order, his wife (Sari Lennick) tells him that she’s leaving him for another man (a wonderfully wormy Fred Melamed), and wants an official Jewish divorce. His brother, who carries around a notebook filled with Byzantine mathematical ramblings that could potentially predict tornadoes and/or help him cheat at cards, gets into more and more trouble. He starts fantasizing about his comely Jewish neighbor, who smokes weed and sunbathes naked (a brassy and cougar-ishly awesome Amy Landecker). And a Korean student, troubled by his failing grade, bribes Larry into giving passing him.
All of these personal windfalls build and build, which crescendo with increasing intensity and peppered with the Coens’ penchant for the weird and absurd (remember how “The Man Who Wasn’t There” had a UFO? That kind of thing), as well as their superb knack for casting (Adam Arkin, as Larry’s lawyer, shines). Larry goes to visit three rabbis (they even get their own title cards!), but leaves each one more confused than the last (one tells an involved story about a gentile whose front teeth were mysteriously inscribed with a Jewish phrase).
While this sounds like a kind of depressing Philip Roth-ian thing, it’s not. But it’s not a wacky comedy either. (Those troubled by the excessive, nihilistic mugging of “Burn After Reading” should be please with this.) Somehow the Coens manage to sidestep the pitfalls of the “midlife crisis” film, enriching it with deep philosophical and spiritual questions that, quite frankly, we’re still trying to figure out after an initial viewing. As we said in Toronto, this might be the Coens most personal film, but just like everything else, it’s still hard to decipher, figure out, and unlock.
Technically, the movie is just as sound as anything else they’ve done, with Roger Deakins’ gorgeous cinematography, Carter Burwell’s twinkly score (accented by a half-dozen Jefferson Airplane songs), and the Coens themselves contributing outstanding editorial work (under their assumed identity Roderick Jaynes, who has a hilariously detailed biography in the press notes). The performances are universally great, with Stuhlbarg as the obvious standout. He’s a sort of hapless Woody Allen-type character, befuddled and enraged but too castrated by suburban life to do much of anything. However, he’s far from passive, and it’s a testament to Stuhlbarg’s talent that he can get across so much without saying much – a stutter, a facial tic, a twisted eyebrow says it all. He is genuinely confused and upset by his situation, and he’s not sure who to blame, and what role God has to do with any of it. Sometimes, as the bumper sticker says and the Coens suggest, shit happens.
Is the movie perfect? No. At times it feels almost overwhelmingly overstuffed, there’s about one dream sequence too many (this isn’t a Buñuel film) and by the end, you think the Coens might have too many balls in the air, with resolution posing a prickly problem. Thankfully, they avoid this by one of the ballsiest endings in recent memory. If people were confused and pissed off by the last scene of “No Country for Old Men,” we predict rioting in the theater for this one.
But that said the conclusion makes a perfect kind of sense. We’re left with just as many questions as poor Larry, wondering what our cinematic God (the Coens) have put us through. This is the Coens, coming back from the minor folly that was “Burn After Reading,” in a big way, proving once again that they’re one of the most vital filmmaking teams in cinema today. Jews and gentiles can both agree on that one. [A-] – Drew Taylor
