Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen, US, 2009, 105mins
Cast:
Michael Stuhlbarg, Sari Lennick, Fred Melamed, Richard Kind, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus
Review by
Matthew Rodgers
Finally shorn of the Oscar hoodoo, Joel and Ethan Cohen let their curly hair down last year with the enjoyably throwaway Burn After Reading And now for something completely different, very personal, but still highly accomplished.
Casting aside their Hollywood rolodex of C for Clooney and M for McDormand, A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary life told using extraordinary unknowns. It's 1967 and Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is toiling with an insecure job at a quiet middle-America University. His position is up for tenure renewal and he has just been informed by his wife (Sari Lennick) that she is leaving him for one of his snobby acquaintances, Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed), a man with seemingly more moral fibre than himself. His inept brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny (Aaron Wolff) isn't taking his religious commitments seriously and his daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) is a regular withdrawer from his wallet. Welcome to Larry's life.
The fourteenth film from this increasingly impressively stable is a very niche one, right down to the need to provide a glossary of Jewish terms with the production notes issued to the press. It's a film that entertains on one level but also operates as a memorandum for those in the know, while educating those that don't [this reviewer's hand is in the air].
Drawing favourable comparisons with Curb Your Enthusiasm, the film's humour relies on the self deprecating failings of Gopnik, a man struggling with the expectations of his faith and community. And what a wonderful piece of divine intervention it was that the Coens found the perfect actor for the role in Stuhlbarg. An anxious, nervous twitch of a man, he gives a performance of such deadpan brilliance, reflecting the brothers' own obvious trials of life on his worrywart face and providing the audience with a real connection to the story.
It also shares many of the same themes explored in No Country for Old Men ; the cruel inevitability of fate and the crushing realisation of the inadequacy of an individual against the forces of nature. Very few movies pose as many existential questions for contemplation as there are in this one. But does that mean you'll enjoy it?
Yes and No. Sometimes the humour is very specific and subtly ethnic but that doesn't mean it's not funny. The fable-lous prologue is a fascinating off-kilter set-up and although young Danny's nightmare Bar Mitzvah experience is its most lowbrow set piece, it's definitely an awkward social situation that transcends any cultural barriers.
Lovingly structured and recreated from the Coens' own memories and experience, A Serious Man is a difficult recommendation for the simple reason that it's so personal to the filmmakers and that will also be reflected in your response as a viewer. It's a bit of a gamble, but since when did a punt on a Coen Brothers movie backfire? And could the smart-arse at the back who said The Ladykillers please sit down?
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