David O'ConnellA Serious Man
November 27th 2009 01:13
Returning to their Minneapolis roots, Joel and Ethan Coen remind us of the turmoil that awaits those who entrust their faith to anything beyond the futility of life. In A Serious Man, set in an era they grew up in - the 1960’s - we witness the slow unraveling of the life of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics teacher unable to collate the intricate equations of his own faltering, suffocating life.
His wife Judith (Sari Lennick) has declared her attachment to another man, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed); his bickering son, Danny (Aaron Wolff) and daughter, Sarah (Jessica McManus), hound him with incessant, puerile demands, and his brother Arthur (Richard Kind) adds further unwanted tension to the household, including drawing attention from the law.
Watching Larry’s life being slowly disseminated is like helplessly bearing witness to the pathetic flailing of a one-armed man in deep water from behind an impenetrable glass barrier. He seeks the religious guidance of a series of local rabbis but their oblique deconstruction of his life and its purpose shed little light on his miserable plight. Only a more profound confusion is left to fester within and prod his every waking moment antagonistically.
Forced to make alternate living arrangements, with the mournful Arthur in tow, Larry wonders if his life can come unstuck in any more places. The Coens, as they’ve proved before, can be unforgiving string-pullers in mapping out the fates of their hapless creations, setting the will of unfair fates against them for blackly comedic purposes. With his son’s bar mitzvah on the horizon, a minor car wreck and the threat of a failing student who offers him a bribe, only add to Larry’s sensation of floating downhill to moral and financial ruin.
As in Barton Fink (1991) and Fargo (1996), their earlier masterpieces in a similar vein, little respite ensures guilty pleasure for devotees of their style. Though set in a Jewish stronghold, there’s an undeniable universality in the unfolding of the narrative, a grievance we all share against untimely reminders of our inferiority and tiny presence on this earth.
The use of mostly unknown actors gives the film an anonymousness that we can all relate to. Stuhlbarg is magnificent as Gopnik, never allowing his despair to slip beyond the point of hysteria, which in lesser hands it might have done. As usual for a Coen brothers film, the support players are flawless. They have an incredible knack for this sort of thing; every role - even the most minimal - is given room to make a tiny but indelible impression, Amy Landecker deserving special mention as bored, deadpan neighbour Mrs. Samsky.
Every perfectly conceived frame of A Serious Man bears the influence of uniquely Coen sensibilities; this is a film that couldn’t belong to anyone else, from the unobtrusive, uncluttered visuals, honed to picture-perfect meticulousness by regular cinematographer Roger Deakins, to the subtle, doomed-fate weightiness of Carter Burwell’s sparsely spotted score.
This mesmerizing film evolves slowly, gathering the weight of its underlying theme, the bleakest of possible pronouncements - that trying to make sense of a senseless world is purest folly. And yet we laugh with black-hearted glee at the recognisable eccentricities, the idiosyncratic sidelights; marvel at the truth and artfulness of the telling. A Serious Man is the Coen brothers’ quiet masterpiece. It may be an acquired taste but for those in on the joke, it’s bliss.
Watch the trailer here.
His wife Judith (Sari Lennick) has declared her attachment to another man, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed); his bickering son, Danny (Aaron Wolff) and daughter, Sarah (Jessica McManus), hound him with incessant, puerile demands, and his brother Arthur (Richard Kind) adds further unwanted tension to the household, including drawing attention from the law.
Watching Larry’s life being slowly disseminated is like helplessly bearing witness to the pathetic flailing of a one-armed man in deep water from behind an impenetrable glass barrier. He seeks the religious guidance of a series of local rabbis but their oblique deconstruction of his life and its purpose shed little light on his miserable plight. Only a more profound confusion is left to fester within and prod his every waking moment antagonistically.
Forced to make alternate living arrangements, with the mournful Arthur in tow, Larry wonders if his life can come unstuck in any more places. The Coens, as they’ve proved before, can be unforgiving string-pullers in mapping out the fates of their hapless creations, setting the will of unfair fates against them for blackly comedic purposes. With his son’s bar mitzvah on the horizon, a minor car wreck and the threat of a failing student who offers him a bribe, only add to Larry’s sensation of floating downhill to moral and financial ruin.
As in Barton Fink (1991) and Fargo (1996), their earlier masterpieces in a similar vein, little respite ensures guilty pleasure for devotees of their style. Though set in a Jewish stronghold, there’s an undeniable universality in the unfolding of the narrative, a grievance we all share against untimely reminders of our inferiority and tiny presence on this earth.
Michael Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik
The use of mostly unknown actors gives the film an anonymousness that we can all relate to. Stuhlbarg is magnificent as Gopnik, never allowing his despair to slip beyond the point of hysteria, which in lesser hands it might have done. As usual for a Coen brothers film, the support players are flawless. They have an incredible knack for this sort of thing; every role - even the most minimal - is given room to make a tiny but indelible impression, Amy Landecker deserving special mention as bored, deadpan neighbour Mrs. Samsky.
Every perfectly conceived frame of A Serious Man bears the influence of uniquely Coen sensibilities; this is a film that couldn’t belong to anyone else, from the unobtrusive, uncluttered visuals, honed to picture-perfect meticulousness by regular cinematographer Roger Deakins, to the subtle, doomed-fate weightiness of Carter Burwell’s sparsely spotted score.
This mesmerizing film evolves slowly, gathering the weight of its underlying theme, the bleakest of possible pronouncements - that trying to make sense of a senseless world is purest folly. And yet we laugh with black-hearted glee at the recognisable eccentricities, the idiosyncratic sidelights; marvel at the truth and artfulness of the telling. A Serious Man is the Coen brothers’ quiet masterpiece. It may be an acquired taste but for those in on the joke, it’s bliss.
Watch the trailer here.
Amy Landecker as Mrs. Samsky
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Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by David O'Connell
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Anything with Joel and Ethan's name attached will instantly be a must see for me and this is no exception.
Couldn't read all of your review for fear of spoilers but your last paragraph makes it sound like this will be another quality experience.
For me Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers are the only two films the boys have made that disappointed...so bad in fact that there is little positive I can say about them.
Comment by David O'Connell
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Comment by Bruno S.