Genre: Drama, Black Comedy
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: Michael Stuhlberg, Richard Kind, Sari Wagner Lennick, Fred Melamed, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus, Adam Arkin
Running Time: 105 minutes (plus trailers)
“Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you”
I have never seen a Coen Brothers film that I haven’t liked more the second time around. Be it because of the incredible attention to detail found in the production design and visual composition of each frame, the subtleties and nuances of the often dark and macabre humour or the rich and expressive worlds they create and the bizarre characters that inhabit them, I find that each film by the brothers, whose body of work includes Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men and Burn After Reading, improves exponentially with each viewing. I do not love every film they have ever made, and indeed I am oftentimes confused and frustrated by the extremely unsatisfying nature of the stories they tell. Never the less, I would hard pressed to name a director currently working in Hollywood more talented than Joel and Ethan Coen, and despite some irritation I have about the way their latest projects plays out, I think A Serious Man might just be one of their best.
To confirm, I have seen A Serious Man twice in theatres, and I very intentionally held off writing my review of the film until I had done so; there is a lot to appreciate about this movie, and the last thing I wanted to do was miss something. The movie opens with a quote from the medieval French rabbi Rashi (above) and a bizarre and seemingly irrelevant prologue in which a Yiddish woman murders someone who may or may not be a demon. Skip forward to 1967 suburban Minneapolis, where we are introduced to Jewish physics professor and father two Lawrence Gobnick. Larry is a considerate member of the community, raising his children Danny and Sarah in the faith, and generally trying to live his life as “a serious man”. Despite this, over the course of two weeks, Larry's life is completely and utterly destroyed.
Now the Coen brother’s are not known for being kind to their characters; remember in their last outing (Burn After Reading), the only truly selfless person was violently hacked to death with a hatchet. But even by their standards, the abuse that Larry suffers in A Serious Man is brutal; indeed, the movies entire story is centred around Joel and Ethan's methodical and downright malicious dismemberment of Larry’s very existence. His wife wants a divorce, he is forced into a motel with his shut in of a brother, his children barely acknowledge his existence and to top it all off, his chance of receiving tenure at the university is being threatened by a disgruntled student and a series of denigrating letters from an anonymous source. As his desperation to hold his life together increases, Larry seeks advice from a number of unhelpful Rabbi, but is unable to find a single solid reason, religious, scientific or otherwise, for all of his woes.
Now it may not sound like it, but this movie, despite not being a comedy in the traditional sense of the word, is hilarious. Theatre actor Michael Stuhlburg has perfect timing as Larry, his mannerisms and line delivery reflecting flawlessly a man on the verge of total emotional breakdown, and he is well deserving of the Oscar buzz surround his name. Like so many Coen films, the humour in A Serious Man comes from the strangest of places; for example, the meandering tale told by a the second of Larry’s rabbi about a local dentist who finds a message hidden in one of his patients' teeth. Now the account holds no relevance to the story or Larry’s own predicament, but the way it is told makes it probably one of the most ingenious sequences of the year. Not just the dialogue but the camera angles, the use of music and production design. This movie is actually very cruel, with most of the laughs coming from Larry’s increasingly desperate attempts to find a clear answer. And I found even more to laugh at and appreciate the second time around.
There are many people who are not going to like this movie. Again, like so many Coen films, A Serious Man is not satisfying, at least not in terms of plot resolution. Take for example the opening scene. What is the purpose of the parable; who are these characters and what bearing do they have on the narrative? And for that matter, why the hell is the scene shot in a totally different aspect ratio to the rest of the film? One thing I’ve found as I explore the Coen’s filmography further is the apparent lack of respect they have for their audience. Be it the claim at the beginning of Fargo that the film is based on real life events – a claim known to be completely false – or the totally unsatisfying and seemingly pointless final twenty minutes of No Country for Old Men, this duo does not seem to care what an audience (let alone a critic) makes of their films. Do not expect your questions of the opening sequence to be answered, because A Serious Man is a film that delights in not answering them. Likewise, the films abrupt ending (coming after one final twist of the knife) resolves absolutely nothing, leaving you only with more questions and a sneaking suspicion that all the characters, Larry especially, are supremely screwed.
And yet this isn’t really a complaint. I have mentioned several times now that A Serious Man shares many similarities with the Coen brother’s previous films, and in many ways this is a very typical Coen brother’s film; frustrating, inaccessible, a little bit smug and somehow brilliant. It also features the usual behind the scenes crowd; Carter Burwell produces another excellent and moody score, and Roger Deakins does great work as the cinematographer. And of course Joel and Ethan themselves are in total control behind every aspect of the production, co-writing, producing, directing and editing (under their common pseudonym) the film with their usual meticulous attention to detail. The first time I saw the movie was with my brother, and upon leaving I asked him what he thought. He replied that he liked it, but couldn’t explain why. I feel quite similar to him; I find it very difficult to articulate what it is exactly that puts the Coens and their movies so far ahead of the curve.
But if I had to try, I would probably say it is because of that attention to detail. In one of the final scenes of the film, Larry’s son Danny walks slowly through the Rabbi Marshak’s office to his desk. As the camera moves through the office, I found myself (on both first and second viewing) totally absorbed, searching for meaning in every wayward artefact stacked in piles on the floor. Despite not always liking their films (and rarely liking the way they treat me as a viewer), I cannot deny that the Coens' are masters of the craft, and every word, every shot, every single piece of furniture in this film feels like it has been intentionally selected to make the movie the near perfect picture that it is. They say that God is in the details, which is ironic given that the biggest question in A Serious Man is ultimately “why is God punishing Larry when he didn’t do anything?” But it's Joel and Ethan, not God, who are doing the punishing. The reason why?
They haven't told me.
A Serious Man is in theatres in Australia now
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: Michael Stuhlberg, Richard Kind, Sari Wagner Lennick, Fred Melamed, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus, Adam Arkin
Running Time: 105 minutes (plus trailers)
“Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you”
I have never seen a Coen Brothers film that I haven’t liked more the second time around. Be it because of the incredible attention to detail found in the production design and visual composition of each frame, the subtleties and nuances of the often dark and macabre humour or the rich and expressive worlds they create and the bizarre characters that inhabit them, I find that each film by the brothers, whose body of work includes Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men and Burn After Reading, improves exponentially with each viewing. I do not love every film they have ever made, and indeed I am oftentimes confused and frustrated by the extremely unsatisfying nature of the stories they tell. Never the less, I would hard pressed to name a director currently working in Hollywood more talented than Joel and Ethan Coen, and despite some irritation I have about the way their latest projects plays out, I think A Serious Man might just be one of their best.To confirm, I have seen A Serious Man twice in theatres, and I very intentionally held off writing my review of the film until I had done so; there is a lot to appreciate about this movie, and the last thing I wanted to do was miss something. The movie opens with a quote from the medieval French rabbi Rashi (above) and a bizarre and seemingly irrelevant prologue in which a Yiddish woman murders someone who may or may not be a demon. Skip forward to 1967 suburban Minneapolis, where we are introduced to Jewish physics professor and father two Lawrence Gobnick. Larry is a considerate member of the community, raising his children Danny and Sarah in the faith, and generally trying to live his life as “a serious man”. Despite this, over the course of two weeks, Larry's life is completely and utterly destroyed.
Now the Coen brother’s are not known for being kind to their characters; remember in their last outing (Burn After Reading), the only truly selfless person was violently hacked to death with a hatchet. But even by their standards, the abuse that Larry suffers in A Serious Man is brutal; indeed, the movies entire story is centred around Joel and Ethan's methodical and downright malicious dismemberment of Larry’s very existence. His wife wants a divorce, he is forced into a motel with his shut in of a brother, his children barely acknowledge his existence and to top it all off, his chance of receiving tenure at the university is being threatened by a disgruntled student and a series of denigrating letters from an anonymous source. As his desperation to hold his life together increases, Larry seeks advice from a number of unhelpful Rabbi, but is unable to find a single solid reason, religious, scientific or otherwise, for all of his woes.
Now it may not sound like it, but this movie, despite not being a comedy in the traditional sense of the word, is hilarious. Theatre actor Michael Stuhlburg has perfect timing as Larry, his mannerisms and line delivery reflecting flawlessly a man on the verge of total emotional breakdown, and he is well deserving of the Oscar buzz surround his name. Like so many Coen films, the humour in A Serious Man comes from the strangest of places; for example, the meandering tale told by a the second of Larry’s rabbi about a local dentist who finds a message hidden in one of his patients' teeth. Now the account holds no relevance to the story or Larry’s own predicament, but the way it is told makes it probably one of the most ingenious sequences of the year. Not just the dialogue but the camera angles, the use of music and production design. This movie is actually very cruel, with most of the laughs coming from Larry’s increasingly desperate attempts to find a clear answer. And I found even more to laugh at and appreciate the second time around.
There are many people who are not going to like this movie. Again, like so many Coen films, A Serious Man is not satisfying, at least not in terms of plot resolution. Take for example the opening scene. What is the purpose of the parable; who are these characters and what bearing do they have on the narrative? And for that matter, why the hell is the scene shot in a totally different aspect ratio to the rest of the film? One thing I’ve found as I explore the Coen’s filmography further is the apparent lack of respect they have for their audience. Be it the claim at the beginning of Fargo that the film is based on real life events – a claim known to be completely false – or the totally unsatisfying and seemingly pointless final twenty minutes of No Country for Old Men, this duo does not seem to care what an audience (let alone a critic) makes of their films. Do not expect your questions of the opening sequence to be answered, because A Serious Man is a film that delights in not answering them. Likewise, the films abrupt ending (coming after one final twist of the knife) resolves absolutely nothing, leaving you only with more questions and a sneaking suspicion that all the characters, Larry especially, are supremely screwed.
And yet this isn’t really a complaint. I have mentioned several times now that A Serious Man shares many similarities with the Coen brother’s previous films, and in many ways this is a very typical Coen brother’s film; frustrating, inaccessible, a little bit smug and somehow brilliant. It also features the usual behind the scenes crowd; Carter Burwell produces another excellent and moody score, and Roger Deakins does great work as the cinematographer. And of course Joel and Ethan themselves are in total control behind every aspect of the production, co-writing, producing, directing and editing (under their common pseudonym) the film with their usual meticulous attention to detail. The first time I saw the movie was with my brother, and upon leaving I asked him what he thought. He replied that he liked it, but couldn’t explain why. I feel quite similar to him; I find it very difficult to articulate what it is exactly that puts the Coens and their movies so far ahead of the curve.
But if I had to try, I would probably say it is because of that attention to detail. In one of the final scenes of the film, Larry’s son Danny walks slowly through the Rabbi Marshak’s office to his desk. As the camera moves through the office, I found myself (on both first and second viewing) totally absorbed, searching for meaning in every wayward artefact stacked in piles on the floor. Despite not always liking their films (and rarely liking the way they treat me as a viewer), I cannot deny that the Coens' are masters of the craft, and every word, every shot, every single piece of furniture in this film feels like it has been intentionally selected to make the movie the near perfect picture that it is. They say that God is in the details, which is ironic given that the biggest question in A Serious Man is ultimately “why is God punishing Larry when he didn’t do anything?” But it's Joel and Ethan, not God, who are doing the punishing. The reason why?They haven't told me.
A Serious Man is in theatres in Australia now
