A Serious Man
Larry Gopnik’s life is teetering on the brink. Two weeks before his son’s bar mitzvah, his wife (Sari Lennick) tells him she wants a divorce, his brother Arthur (the reliably funny Richard Kind) is living with them, sleeping on their couch. This Physics professor is up for tenure at the University, but a friend on the committee keeps hinting of possible roadblocks.
These are just some of the plot strains at work in “A Serious Man,” the latest confection from Joel & Ethan Coen, who reportedly were inspired in writing Larry (played by stage actor Michael Stuhlbarg) by their father.
In a sense, this is the Coen’s most sympathetic film. Sure, what they put Larry through is cruel (and some might say unusual), but Larry goes along with it extraordinarily. This is ultimately the most important part of “A Serious Man”- more than being serious, Larry is a good man. He wants to be a good father, a good husband, a good brother, and a good teacher (even though he’s got a student trying to bribe him for a better grade on his midterm). He’s just having a tough time of late.
But while the Lord never gives us anything more than we can handle, religion is hardly a help to Larry. Judaism plays a big role in the film. Larry’s son (the superb Aaron Wolf) is getting ready for his bar mitzvah, but he’s also experimenting with pot acquired by a local kid he owes $20 (a scenario the Coen’s mine for prime comic fodder). His wife wants a divorce approved by the church so she and her new love Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed) can be married within the faith. And Larry tried getting help from his spiritual leaders, but junior Rabbi Scott (“The Big Bang Theory’s” priceless Simon Helberg) just wants him to meditate on the parking lot, senior Rabbi Nachtner (George Wyner) just has a seemingly pointless story to tell him, while head Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandell) won’t see him at all. Spiritually, Larry is, in a sense, lost.
Oddly, the Coen’s are there to shepherd him through the storm (thankfully, they have a moving central performance by Stuhlbarg that we follow every step of the way). Taken as a unique parable of goodness, tinged with the Brother’s ever-present dark wit, “A Serious Man” is seriously compelling. Taken as a personal tribute to their heritage, it’s unquestionably their most original work ever. But even putting the jarring, but thematically-relevant ending aside (the Coen’s way of saying that even when things seem good, there’s always a storm brewing in the distance), there’s something about the movie that just didn’t grab me the way the Coen’s did with their best films (“Fargo,” “No Country for Old Men,” “The Big Lebowski,” “Miller’s Crossing”). All of the elements are there- including the superb Roger Deakins cinematography and compelling Carter Burwell score- and as I hope is obvious by the above paragraphs, they certainly gave me a lot to think about. But some of the Coen’s magic seems lost, and the film just feels a little too existentialist, maybe a bit too pretentious at times (a lot like their 2001 black-and-white film “The Man Who Wasn’t There”), to stand with their best work.
