A Serious Man reviewed
[ A Serious Man is one of the three films we're reviewing this Thursday on The Rotten Tomatoes Show. It is currently in limited release with new cities being added weekly.]
The premise of A Serious Man appears to be up for much debate around critical circles. Is it a nihilistic take on Judiasm? Is it the Story of Job planted in the Midwest? Is it merely a continuation of the age old Coen ethos: "if at first you don't succeed, give up before something worse happens." All three seem to be visible when we first peek into the life of no-name university physics Professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his son Danny (Aaron Wolff).
As their day-to-day occurrences are cut up (Larry getting a physical, Danny listening to Jefferson Airplane in Torah class), it's impossible to forget about the nearly ten-minute prologue of a husband and wife being visited by a spirit, or else the effect of putting too much belief into one's faith. But these are the dualities that the Coens force us to confront, no matter how noble our desires or how petty our thoughts.
It gets worse for Larry as his monosolobic student Clive (David Kang) may or may not be attempting to bribe him, his wife (Sari Lennick) wants a traditional Jewish divorce ("I want a Get." "Ok." Pause. "A what?") so she can remarry their neighbor Sy (Fred Melamed), a verbose and cultured-on-the-outside widower.
A Serious Man represents the Coens' structure, at best, with the opening prologue/tale of a husband and wife who aren't sure what they invite into their home. On one hand, the wife argues with belief and religion, as well as second and third hand stories she's heard. The husband believes in reason and is "a rational man." Despite the eventual, yet subtle, violent conclusion, the husband begs, "What have we done?"
"We had evil. Evil is gone," and shut the door.
This sums up what Man, in theory, is about: the quest for acceptance on a level that can't be understood whether by religion or tales, such as "The Goy's Teeth," but nor can basic rationality make sense of them, using the Coens' final shot as definite proof. Instead, it is all up to how one takes on these feats--even if it means just keeping one ear constantly tuned into Jefferson Airplane.
-John Lichman
-
- groups:
- movies blog
-
- tags:
- movie review, A Serious Man, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, 1 more
