User Reviews

The Coen Brothers give to its frazzled protagonist Larry Gopnick a line a few times during the course of A Serious Man, "I didn't do anything!" that is more than just an homage to Franz Kafka - it's ripping him off basically. This is not to say Larry is quite in the same predicament of Joseph K. Then again, I wonder if Larry would prefer no explanation to the if-it-wasn't-for-bad-luck-I-would-have-no-luck status over the kinds he gets to his troubles. He has a divorce pending and his wife leaving with Sy Ableman (seriously, Sy Ableman!), he has a South Korean student who may be simultaneously bribing him and suing him for defamation, he has a brother who has a cyst/no job/gambling troubles, two kids who more or less are just typically dysfunctional teens (the boy on his way to be Bar Mitzvah and smoking enough dope to acknowledge more than once that it's 1967), and his sexual repression is practically taunted by the foxy Jewish woman next door who sunbathes nude. And what does God have to say about this? Oh, don't get him started on trips to the Rabbi - frankly, he'd have better luck with Anton Chigurh.

A Serious Man is a movie to take seriously as art, but at the same time the Coens aren't above pulling out their usual all-stops to make this a hilariously weird and awkward movie. Perhaps a better way to compare is that it's like if Curb Your Enthusiasm starred an average shmo who doesn't have quite the sense of humor of Larry David (and, perhaps, is even cursed by his bloodline via the opening scene in the movie... or maybe not, I'll get to that in a moment), and who keeps getting s*** on from all directions (not coincidentally perhaps Richard Kind appears in both show and movie). It's such a funny movie that I have to think back to Big Lebowski and O'Brother Where Art Thou to remember when I laughed so hard. Maybe its the predilection for Jewish jokes that sting so, or maybe its the originality with the storytelling. As far as a black-as-Jewish-death comedy, it works completely.

As for being a masterpiece of a film... I'm still not completely sure. Sometimes the Coens' movies are instant classics (No Country for Old Men, Blood Simple), and others take a little while to grow on a viewer (i.e. Miller's Crossing, even Big Lebowski was a grower and not a shower for me). A Serious Man may fall in the latter category; it's such a personal film, maybe more than anyone done before if only for the time and place and particulars of the characters in a Jewish-suburb of Minnesota, and its such an oddity in their catalog of work. Watching Larry on this existential odyssey of "WTF" nears Bergman proportions - there's even a scene where a character's death affects a woman in much the same way as the father Ekdahl's death in Fanny & Alexander - where religion is tested to the fullest and most harrowing of emotional schemes. Where is God when Larry needs him? Everywhere? Nowhere? Screw Larry, he didn't pay his (son's) Columbia Records account!

But for all that succeeds in A Serious Man, such as a completely masterful sequence (a contender for my single favorite sequence of any movie this year) where a Rabbi describes a harrowing and pointless and uproarious story of a dentist and a Goy's teeth, or when Larry's son is stoned out of his mind when reading the Torah at his Bar Mitzvah (a first in cinema history, combining marijuana, Roger Deakins' use of a lens-baby, and Hebrew), and its creative characterizations and shocking nightmare scenes, it's an unsettling film, and not always in the best ways. It's a film that, as one could argue in their past films, is at war with if not the audience directly then with audience expectations. We might expect A Serious Man to just be about this man's downward spiral in his life, but what then to make of that (cool) opening scene all in Yiddish and (admitted by Joel Coen) to not really have a whole lot to do directly with the rest of the movie, or, for that matter, the end of the movie which just... ends.

As far as 'f***-you's' to audiences go, it certainly is funny and startling in comparison with No Country for Old Men (almost like the Coens are saying 'yeah, knock this one this time, we *dare* you!), and if I get an f-you from filmmakers I'm glad it comes from them. But... you will either need more than a viewing for it to sink in, or you'll curse the day you decided to walk in the theater or rent it. Not much of a middle ground. Then again, I wouldn't want it any other way in this case. And hey, it's got Jefferson Airplane quoted by a Yoda-Rabbi, that scores points right there! 9.5/10

****SPOILER ALERT******

Several reviewers have commented on physics representing logical certainty. In this movie, the opposite is true, and I believe that is the fulcrum upon which this modern story of Job rests. Modern physics strikes at the very heart of faith, mystery and law

The dybbuk! The husband is caught in the world of the material and cannot believe that the rabbi before him is a spirit, but his wife...she is not fooled! She believes that the world is filled with mysteries, and her faith in this leads to decisive action--saving them??

"Schroedinger's Cat" is a modern mystery, and it is the single subject that Larry is teaching in his physics class. "Bracket k bracket and it is equal," he says with finality, thinking that he has demonstrated the order of the world neatly. But "Schroedinger's Cat" is the ultimate expression of the rules of order, or G-d's work, leading off the cliff into the abyss of mystery.

In the example Schroedinger published in 1935, a cat is in a box with a "diabolical apparatus" which kills the cat if a random subatomic particle decays. Modern physics, being invented at the time, made the absurd prediction that until you opened the lid to check, the cat was in some sort of blurred probability space of being alive/dead, and it only became actually dead (or alive) when you opened the lid to check. Observation changed reality. The cat is in a mysterious state, beyond our comprehension or belief until we look. Do we have faith? Einstein didn't. He countered stating that "G-d doesn't play dice with the universe!" Schroedinger was doubtful, but insisted that the mystery was simply inescapable. This is the foundation for a rich allegory, indeed.

"I don't understand the mathematics, but I understand the stories," Larry's Korean student insists. "No, if you don't understand the math, you don't understand the physics. Even I sometimes don't understand the stories," Larry shoots back.

And in this lies the nub of the tale. Larry understands the rules--and follows them. His life is dreary and takes a seeming nose dive. Plague after plague arise and he is perplexed. One rabbi says "We all question the existence of hashem ("his name" = G-d) and then we see the wonder in...the parking lot." HE GETS IT!! For him it is faith. Even the friggin' parking lot is a divine miracle! The next rabbi weaves a deeply mystical tale with a banal ending. Larry is outraged. "What does it mean?" "How do I know. G-d does't owe us an explanation. The responsibility is the other way around," the rabbi responds. They each have their own understanding and advise. The young rabbi is not yet wise and advises faith. The next rabbi acknowledges mystery, but says it is beyond us to understand, so be a good person, "or a better person." "God doesn't owe us an explanation. The responsibility runs the other way."

It soon becomes clear that the Korean student and his father have a razor-sharp understanding of the "Schroedinger's Cat" story and thrust the paradox into Larry's life with a vengeance. If only Larry understood the paradox.

But he understands logic and rules. His faith is shaky, but he follows the rules. Sy doesn't believe a G-d is watching him, steals his friends wife, and G-d strikes him down in his path.

Even Larry's brother, believes in a crazy half-physics, half-Kaballah mystery and he actually wins card games with it, but he breaks the rules and is a pariah.

The last rabbi will not even talk to him. The most direct response of G- d being questioned by a doubting subject.

At the end, Larry feels he is through his trial and "opens the box" to check to see if there is a G-d there. Surprise! There is! He opened the box by breaking the rules. The cat is dead. All his plagues had only been in some sort of blurred probability space of having happened/not happened; his marriage, his tenure the whole chain of events. It was not until he tested G-d by breaking a rule that the very real G-d of the bible smote him and his eldest son down.

The original Job had actual punishments and kept his faith. Our modern Job has existential punishments and ends with a lack of faith. We must have faith, recognize the mysteries or obey the law according to our capacity, but to do none of these is an abomination.

It's been mentioned many times that A Serious Man (2009) is a retelling of the Book of Job. It very well could be - as only Coen Brothers could adapt the Biblical story to the screen. They placed Job, the Schlimazel of the Old Testament in Minnesota suburbia of their own adolescent. They named him Larry Gopnik, made him a physics professor in a local college, a nice, loving, and pious man, and let him watch hopelessly how his life was collapsing around him while he tried to make sense of what and why was happening to him and desperately sought after a spiritual help from his religious advisers, three rabbis - in vain. A Serious Man is not an autobiographical movie but it is set in the very atmosphere and spirit where two Coen boys grew up in the year 1967, the exact year Joel Coen turned 13 and was preparing for his own bar mitzvah - just like Danny Gopnik, 13 years old pot smoking Jefferson Airplane fan Larry's son whose Bar Mitzvah in the movie is a truly unforgettable event for many reasons. Now, as the experienced celebrated filmmakers who have proved (at least for this viewer) to be among THE best modern filmmakers, Coens look back at the place and time that shaped them as individuals, men, and creative personalities, and they ask eternal and often impossible to answer questions. Does life have meaning? What is the point of it? Or is there point at all? Why do bad things happen to a decent person who "did not do anything"? Is there any certainty in life or all we can do just accept the fact there is no explanation, no certainty, and no fairness, and the best is - "to receive with simplicity everything that happens to you."

I can understand how this film may be puzzling and even disappointing for many viewers even among the fans. A Serious Man is different and original even for Coens, always innovative and creative artists, but it is undeniably and unmistakably, their film, with their finger prints all over. Take for example the opening scene, the black/white prologue spoken in Yiddish and set somewhere in Eastern Europe back in the 19th or 18th century, in a small Shtetl. It involves a married couple and their mysterious visitor who could be a dybbuck, an evil spirit, believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person. The scene certainly would stay with a viewer and make them try to understand its meaning. As one explanation, the husband and wife could be the ancestors of Larry Gopnik before his family immigrated to the USA and ended up in Minnesota. The encounter with the dybbuk could bring the curse to the future generations, and that may explain all assortment of "tsuris" that poor Larry tries to deal with. Coen's explained that they wanted to include a folk tale to set the tone in the film that explores among many things Jewish traditions, religion, faith, and character. They could not find a tale they'd like, so they wrote one and made a very stylish, ominously dark yet funny and mysterious opening to their film. As a perfect balance to the fairytale/ghost story opening, the final scene comes that literally can blow you away. As it has happened before in a Coens 'movie , the open ending has as many admirers as haters but I believe it was no other way to finish the film, and I found the ending perfect in the universe that Coens create.

The brothers' decision to cast mostly unknown stage actors in the main roles, proved to be successful one, and everyone was up to their job. Michael Stuhlbarg positively shines as Larry and he makes one of the most sympathetic characters in Coens' movie. Sari Lennick, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed as a seriously creepy man whom Larry's wife Judith wanted to leave Larry for as well as the rest of the cast are all memorable. The camera work by Roger Deakins', the longtime collaborator of Coens in recreating the long gone era of the late 60s in the Middle of America is above any praise. A Serious Man is beautiful, profound, and perfectly well made. It is funny, too. Seriously.

Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love" hovers over the scenes of the Coen brothers' A Serous Man, the story of a Sixties Minnesota Jewish college professor with a small family whose life starts to fall apart. One of the Coens' strangest and most thought-provoking films, this one is a black comedy, a meditation on Jewishness, and a modern rethinking of the Book of Job in a world where "Hashem" (God) isn't just incomprehensible but largely imperceptible. The movie has been seen as a mean-spirited product of self-hating Jews, but that's not right at all. Returning to their roots and their tribe, the Coens have never been more serious or, in their sardonic way, more kind. To see life as a cosmic joke is really quite orthodox. It just doesn't lend itself to easy answers. And the rabbis the professor consults haven't got any. They've got, basically, nothing.

The time and place echo the Coens' own youth. One of them might have been preparing for his Bar Mitzvah like Danny Gopnik (Aaron Wolff), the son of the film's nerdy but utterly decent physics teacher hero, Larry Gopnik (the excellent Michael Stuhlbarg).

'A Serious Man' begins with a little Yiddish prologue set in long-ago shtetl Poland when a wife stabs an old man who's done a good deed for her husband because she thinks he's a dybbuk, a dead person possessed by an evil spirit. (The sequence is serious and gentle, in the manner of the Yiddish theater, and not a joke.) When the old man starts to bleed and wanders out into the snow, the couple realizes they've brought on terrible luck.

Terrible luck: that's what is visited upon Larry Gopnik. But first we see Danny listening to Sixties rock with an earpiece hooked to his transistor, in Hebrew class. The old teacher confiscates the little radio, and tucked into its case $20 the boy owes somebody.

All the scenes are marked by the Coens' usual precision and elegance but the movie is tricky to watch because it changes focus so rapidly. It alternates between offhand polyphonic passages in which four things are going on at once to super-focused ones where only one very intense thing is happening; it asks us to laugh and be cynical but demands metaphysical speculation.

The point is Larry has all this stuff going on at once: his wife (the implacable Sari Lennick) is leaving him, inexplicably, for the titular "serious man," the unctuous, self-satisfied Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), a widower who's wife died only three years ago. His hugs and reassurances of the value of communication show the feel-good clichés of the period used as a cynical ruse. At work, there's a Korean student Clive Park (David Kang) who tries to bribe Larry to change his F to a passing grade, and when Larry refuses, Clive's father threatens a lawsuit. The goy neighbors are vaguely menacing: they're infringing on Larry's property line. He's up for tenure, and somebody's sent the tenure committee letters impugning his morals. His useless brother Arthur, jobless and with a gambling problem, has come for refuge, and is sleeping in the living room. Larry's wife exiles them both to the Jolly Roger Motel. A "sophisticated" woman neighbor (Jewish, Amy Landecker) who sunbathes in the nude, tempts Larry to "take advantage of the new freedoms." Meanwhile there's a daily pinprick that may morph into a serious threat: calls keep coming to the department office to say Larry owes money to a record club he never joined.

The children are simply not there. Danny is only interested in marijuana -- he goes through his Bar Mitzvah (almost as memorable a one as in Schlesinger's 'Sunday Bloody Sunday') entirely stoned -- along with getting better reception to watch a certain TV show, and rock music. (He learns his Torah passage nonetheless.) Danny's older sister goes to a club every day and is only interested in washing her hair.

But all this is incidental, because as the formal inter-titles indicate, the central moments are Larry's attempts to consult with rabbis who will help him. But they're no help. "I, too, have forgotten how to see him in the world," says one (Simon Helberg), with a non-Jewish name, who cites the parking lot as a vision of the wonders of creation. A higher-level rabbi(George Wyner), sipping tea, says, "Something like this, it's never a good time." The oldest, putatively wisest rabbi, Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandell), won't see him at all. He sees Danny after his Bar Mitzvah, returns his transistor radio to him, and quotes Jefferson Airplane.

Central to 'A Serious Man' is Jewishness -- true to the Coens' own origins: they grew up in a heavily Jewish neighborhood, where you went to the synagogue and got Bar Mitzvahed. You became a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer: and each of these professions comes in for an appearance, and Larry's various troubles leads him to more than one lawyer, with threatening bills -- it's a nightmare! -- but it's also steeped in mundane quotidian Jewish experience. The Coens' irony has applied to being Minnesotan in 'Fargo,' to being laid back in 'Big Lebowski.' But being Jewish is a good sight more central to their comic world-view. What are the Jews? The Chosen People. Chosen for what? The Holocaust? Every memory of Jewish pride is matched by a twin memory of humiliation and rejection. None of the people around Larry closest to him are any real help. But he remains a good man. He remains nerdy, but he's still admirable.

In making Larry Gopnik, the humble schlep (a smart mathematician but a dumkopf when it comes to people) into a Job, they redeem him, and they take the torments of man in a world where God can't be located accessible to us and to their humor. Does Jewish experience make the torments of the modern secular world any more comprehensible? Maybe not; but it's what they've got to work with.

I guess the Coen brothers have gone back to making movies I don't like or understand. I've never been into their movies with the exception of the last two - No Country for Old Men and Burn After Reading, which I found brilliant. With this one, I came out of it with the thought "Wtf was this crap about?".

Maybe it's the Coen brothers or maybe it's the Jewish humor, but this movie reminded me of a sad sack dramatic version of Seinfeld, which I never got and also irritated me. The movie opened with a totally incongruent scene that would've been an interesting horror movie, and then went on to become the misadventures of one of the wimpiest guys ever seen on screen, and ended without a conclusion, or a point, for that matter. I hate such movies.

The only redeeming factor I can think of is that the lead, Michael Stuhlbarg, was actually pretty good despite his role of one of the most annoying floor mats I've ever come across.

The only thing fairly remarkable or remotely intriguing about this film is the opening wherein a Yiddish-speaking Jew of the 19th century invites (accidentally) a dybbuk (evil spirit in the shape of a man) into his family home. The ominous turn of events and the wife's sensible solution to the situation is comical and you would think the film would build on such an interesting prologue.

Alas, like reading the Book of Job without the good parts (namely the philosophical arguments and the poetry, let alone a resolution), A Serious Man feels like an exercise in viewing torture. (What is it about 2009? The Road and A Serious Man both belong in the category of 'agonizing to watch...).

Maybe the brilliance of this film lies in that you think at any minute this honest, good, hard-working Jewish man will crack and finally take on the world that is besetting him as opposed to questioning G-d. But for much of the film, our lead character, Larry Gopnik, a professor, husband, father of two, brother of socially-inept Adam, there is little here that happens, let alone satisfies a viewing audience.

It has been awhile before I watched a film wherein I continually battled with myself over whether I should continue or simply walk away. I wanted to walk away...

What made this film the most unbearable is how each periphery character rarely ever showed their humanity - Larry's Son and Daughter are simply cretins, the former a typical high school student with bully problems and marijuana indulgence (also he orders records of the month and leaves the bill for his father) while his daughter's only needs in life seem to be her hair and going out. There is no dimension to either of them while their mother, Larry's wife is a loveless shrew that remarkably makes Larry pay for his rival's funeral, an arrogant friend of the family named Sy. Throughout the first half of the film, Sy and Larry's wife are in love, working on Larry to get a kosher divorce.

After awhile, I lost sympathy for the lead, not because of his wife and family, but because he had wandered into a cinematic world lacking humanity, let alone real people. The Coens have not crafted a movie, let alone a film but an alternate universe, a torture chamber of bland direction and characterization. It has been awhile since I watched a film where I felt I despised so many characters. Ideally, supporting characters are there to create relationships, to reveal the complexity of human life. It seems everyone here is just another means to stab the lead and bludgeon him with their inane presence. Even the rabbi who refuses to talk to him feels less like a person as opposed to a forced story development.

If you were the kid in school who didn't torture earth worms or pull butterfly wings off Monarchs, then you might not like this debacle, another pseudo-film from the Coen Brothers.