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A Serious Man
Go Jewish or don’t go
2009
Review: October 31, 2009
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed, Sari Lennick
If you’re Jewish.
THE SETUP:
Poor schlub’s life is a series of trials.
DISCUSSION:
I wasn’t all that interested in this movie, but then I started reading reviews from outraged Jews says that it verges on anti-Semitism, and that got me interested, seeing as it is made by Jews. And after seeing it, I have to say that I would guess that if you’re Jewish and very familiar with the various rituals and observances of the faith, you are going to get 80% more out of it than I did. Which makes it a little difficult to write a review, as I feel that the majority of it went over my head, and furthermore, one as cautious about saying something is funny or even making any assertion about the movie, for fear that someone will come along and say you’re being anti-Semitic. All that said, here we go.
The movie opens with a epigraph: “Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you.” Then we are in some tiny village somewhere in the past, where a husband arrives home at his cottage. He says he met this older guy on the road. His wife say that the guy he met is a spirit, a dybbuk, and now they’ll have a tragedy befall them, as that’s what this kind of appearance usually foretells. Turns out the guy invited the fellow over—and here he is. The wife is not exactly welcoming, and suddenly sticks an ice pick in his heart, to prove he is a dybbuk. He continues talking for a while. Not bleeding, while you think “Oh, maybe he is a dybbuk!,” then he starts to bleed, and wanders out into the snow, “knowing when he’s not wanted,” and you start to think maybe he’s not, and the wife just killed this guy. Then we have the credits, and pick up in Minnesota in 1967.
Our protagonist is Larry Gopnik, played by Michael Stuhlbarg, who I just saw in the dreary Afterschool. He is a physics professor, and gave a Korean student an F for failing a test, and the student left an envelope of cash on his desk, which Larry neither reports nor uses. He is up for tenure. His daughter is furious because his brother, Arthur, is staying with them, and spends long hours in the bathroom draining his sebaceous cyst. His wife Judith soon announces that she is leaving him for Sy Ableman who soon shows up at Larry’s to talk to him and be all adult about it. Judith and Sy are both comically horrifying characters, she leaping to a position of outrage at everything Larry might say, he physically repulsive and constantly seeking close contact, neither of them letting Larry get out a complete sentence. Soon they are telling Larry that the best thing for the kids would be for him to move out to the shitty motel nearby, and take his brother, although he soon finds he is still responsible for household chores and dealing with his kids’ issues.
All this set up, things just continue, some ups, mostly downs, as Larry endures trials, and more trials. The Korean student starts threatening a lawsuit because Larry neither reported nor returned the money. Larry has a racist neighbor who hates him, but hates other races more. He has a brief dalliance with the woman next door, a hilarious late-60s babe with leathery over-tanned skin and eyes that never seem to move or blink. For me she was the laff riot of the movie. Larry’s brother, the one with the cyst, is also a mathematical genius who uses his talents to count cards, and is arrested for gambling. There may also be some sexual offenses in his past. Trough all of this, Larry’s money is just getting tighter and tighter. In the second half, the movie often diverts into the anxious dreams Larry is having.
By now, one has noticed that the compositions are impeccable, especially the oddly empty expanses of lawn and acres of undistinguished houses with perfectly flat areas of green lawn and grey expanses of concrete. One shot has the screen dark except for a low green light in the motel bathroom, illuminating a pile of towels, and on the right a flat expanse of color for a window.
But, not being Jewish and having no familiarity with the rituals and mores of Larry’s life, I watched the movie unfold at a distance, gleaning only the most surface level of nuances of Larry’s trials, unsure exactly what was being satirized in the exaggerated characters, and not sure if I should laugh if I was. Suffice to say, if you’re Jewish, you’ll get a lot more out of it.
Not to say it’s not worth seeing. I generally found it a pleasant way to spend a few hours, gently amusing in all sorts of ways, but it’s not going to become my favorite Coen brothers’ movie. But one could do much worse, and who knows, if you’re Jewish, this could be the Big Lebowski of Jewish life. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I could really say.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
If you’re Jewish, yes for sure. If not, up to you.
