But seriously folks
Written: Oct 02 '09 (Updated Oct 06 '09)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Thought-provoking mix of frightening psychological and spiritual self-awareness, and dark humor laced with irony.
Cons: If you don't "get" the Coens, you won't "get" this one.
The Bottom Line: The Coen brothers' mix of existential limbo and theological exploration is a darkly funny examination of the Human Condition. Who is laughing at whom, and who gets the last laugh?
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| NFP's Full Review: A Serious Man |
If a movie director’s aim is to convey to a broad audience an examination of Life and the Human Condition, then why should their findings be any clearer than ours? Are we to expect that just because we plunked down our hard-earned money to sit in a theater for 2 hours or more that we will walk out with an Answer from someone else that we haven’t been able to come up with ourselves?
Anyone who has been a fan as I have of the Coen brothers’ movies over the years already knows that knowing less at the end than at the beginning is the key to appreciating their work. Which, of course, is the perfect metaphor for most of our lives. It’s kind of like trying to get your arms around God before actually crossing over.
In their new feature release, “A Serious Man,” Ethan and Joel Coen have elevated that art to an Art Form. And that’s saying a lot given that the Coens’ oeuvre includes the likes of “Barton Fink,” “Burn After Reading,” “The Big Lebowski,” “Fargo,” “O Brother Where Art Thou?,” “Blood Simple,” “Miller’s Crossing,” and “No Country for Old Men” among many other darkly-humorous and eclectic films. These are united by the Coens’ signature thematic opaqueness as satiric form of reflection and introspection.
But in this latest film the directors’ Jewish faith amplifies the paradoxes: from its Yiddish language opening through its climax, what has always been a discreet undertow of Jewish fatalism in the Coens’ films becomes in “A Serious Man” a tsunami of guilt, doubt and search for redemption. Not since Woody Allen’s celluloid New York Jewish conundrums have I been so conscious of being on both an analyst’s couch and in a pew in a house of worship while watching a movie…and laughing at the futility of it all.
THE FILM:
“A Serious Man” revolves around a devout Jew university physics professor named Larry Gopnick. Gopnick is played by Michael Stuhlbarg, known mostly from appearances on the TV series "Ugly Betty," "Law & Order," and "Law & Order: Criminal Intent." The time is 1967, the locale is a Jewish enclave in a Minnesota suburb, and Larry is about to be tested in ways he can only imagine. Think of the Bible and Job.
Why the 60s? Because if there ever was an apocalyptic decade in our time built on self-doubt, questionable values, shifting sands, and confusion, that’s the one.
Larry is an expert at research into scientific principles and paradoxes that the rest of us can’t even pronounce. What he learns as his life collapses around him in drama-after-Dramamine drama is that when it comes to causality in our day-to-day existence, scientific-styled research doesn’t guarantee answers.
There’s a grade-for-bribery plot involving one of his students. Larry’s shot at tenure is at risk from a mysterious unknown source. He is besieged with debt-collection calls from a shady vendor. His marriage is collapsing while his wife has an affair. His children (including an undisciplined son on the verge of his bar mitzvah and a daughter who steals cash from his wallet to pay for her nose job) are at each other’s throats. His Goyim neighbor hates Jews, and a female next door sunbathes in the nude, stirring his libido. And to top it all, his TV reception is on the fritz. Oy!
With the aid of three rabbis, the increasingly befuddled Larry expands his search for an answer to beyond the temporal by doing what he knows best – applying the rules of physics to the metaphysical . The deeper he goes, the more helpless he and we feel .
The difference is that as audience, we can laugh at what he can’t. Until, on reflection, we uncomfortably realize that he is us.
IN SUM:
The Coen brothers are an acquired taste. You like them and “get” them or you don’t. There’s no middle ground. If you prefer your movies wrapped in tidy bows, forget about this one. Offbeat endings are a Coen trademark that often leaves the unsuspecting in the audience muttering in bemusement as the theater lights come back on.
But if you don’t mind laughing while a chill of recognition and self-awareness leaves a sliver of horror in your consciousness, then this film is a must. Will Larry find the Truth, or will he snap? Cinematographer Roger Deakins and music director Carter Burwell make sure you feel the black terror even as you laugh.
I’ll leave discussions about whether this film is nihilistic, atheistic, or spiritual to you. Ironically, I believe, it doesn’t matter because if we are all God’s children, then being clueless surely must be part of the Plan.
Surely.
Right?
Or is that God laughing?
Recommended:
Yes
Viewing Method: Press Screening
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Epinions.com ID:
NFP
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Location: Washington, DC
Reviews written: 129
Trusted by: 174 members
About Me:
Settled in DC and content. Starting up again...slowly.
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