A Serious Man

A Serious Man

By Jonathan Fisher, November 24th, 2009


A lasting memory for me of the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man is Larry Gopnik's neighborhood. The film's poster uses a still from a scene in which Larry walks around on his roof, fixing the family's TV antenna. He stands almost defiantly, observing the perfectly crafted world he lives in, the rounded edges, the neighbours that seem to be playing roles written for them well in advance. He's kind of like the God he's hoping to find all throughout A Serious Man. But like the rest of us, he hasn't a clue what he's doing here.

A Serious Man opens with a funny little legend set in a medieval Jewish town, in which Larry's ancestors allow a dybbuk (the wandering soul of a dead person) to cross the threshold into their home. Generations later, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stulbarg) seems to be cursed. His marriage to his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) is falling apart as she becomes involved with a pompous intellectual named Sy (Fred Melamed), his son is having trouble at Hebrew school, and his candidacy for tenure as physics professor at the local university is under threat when a Korean student, desperate to pass, bribes Larry, then blackmails him after he refuses.

Thus sets up A Serious Man, a modern re-telling of the book of Job through the eyes of an unlucky Jewish man trying to find meaning in the anarchy of his life. He teaches physics, scrawling seemingly endless miles of equations, but is frustrated when his students just don't get it, almost like the supreme being that Larry can't understand. He searches for meaning, visiting as many religious figures as he can for advice. Sy pulls him aside and tries to reason with him, gently explaining the process with which he is going to take away his life. Interesting thing about Sy. He is the 'serious man' that the title refers to, I believe. Even in Larry's own movie, he's too feeble and insignificant to have it named after him.

Throughout the movie, Larry exclaims, "But... I didn't DO anything!!" That comment is predicated on the presumption that you must do something for bad things to happen to you. Not everyone gets what they deserve. Sometimes, the universe just decides to open its bowels all over you. After all, it has things like supernovas and black matter to deal with -- what does it care if you're a little uncomfortable for the brief period of time you'll be alive to bother it?

I realise that I may be making A Serious Man out to be a sombre existential drama. I don't mean to misrepresent it. This movie is funny in that quintissentially Coen Brothers way, with their odd, surreal sense of humour undercutting just about every philosophical revelation that's up on the screen. Their style may not gel with everyone, but they are one of the few film-makers that express their world outlook with clarity, style and an appropriate glibness. Their catalogue is replete with masterpieces (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, etc etc.), and A Serious Man stands well astride them.

The cast is essentially unknown. The role of Larry Gopnik (another great Coen Brothers name, by the way) could have gone to a Coen regular like George Clooney or John Turturro, but I think we would notice those actors. I don't mean notice them as in "Oh look, it's George Clooney", I mean notice the character of Larry. Michael Stulbarg is made to look very ordinary in this film, and his performance is kind of awesome in the way that it slips under our radar. He doesn't play Larry as a sad sack or a pathetic loser. He's just a normal, unflashy guy, trying to work out why his life is collapsing not with a bang, but with a thousand whimpers. Occasionally, we think he might work it out.

Then the final scene comes, and pulls the rug from underneath us. The ending of A Serious Man has been compared, favourably and unfavourably, to the brilliantly timed final shot of their 2007 Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men. This ending is just as brilliant as that one, expressing the world view that the Coen Brothers have been expressing for years: shit just happens, and all of our best efforts to find meaning in the blink of time that we spend alive come crashing down as easily as a school-yard quivering before an impending tornado. Or that split-second before your doctor tells you what could be tragic or indifferent news. In the end, it doesn't really matter.