A Serious Man - Movie Review

Original material is a rare find in Hollywood nowadays. Everything is “remake this” or “reboot that.” Joel and Ethan Coen, the writers/directors of A Serious Man, have had a knack for coming up with some of the best original scripts of the last few decades (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Barton Fink). They return to top form here, producing a screenplay with clever dialogue, ridiculously hilarious situations, and pressing questions about what it takes to stay a good person during adverse times.

Set in 1967, A Serious Man focuses on a Jewish physics professor, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) dealing with a series of increasingly problematic situations involving his family and job. His wife (Sari Lennick) wants a divorce, his 12-year-old son (Aaron Wolff) is a pothead, and his brother, played by the always-funny Richard Kind, is living at his house. Every action that the members of Larry’s family take is put on his shoulders, and as their problems worsen, his life spirals more and more out of control. Although Judaism is a major theme throughout the film, Stuhlbarg’s sympathetic performance keeps his tale accessible for Jews and gentiles alike.

Over the course of their careers, the Coen brothers have relied heavily on black comedy, and this film certainly follows suit. Through the film’s first 40 minutes, we’re content watching Larry struggle with these over-the-top characters in a world that’s beginning to unravel. Not only is his wife leaving him, but she’s leaving him for his pompous colleague Sy Ableman—played perfectly by Fred Melamed. On top of that, she doesn’t just want a divorce, she wants a traditional Jewish divorcing procedure requiring him to consult with a few rabbis who appear to have no idea what they’re talking about. To keep us laughing, the Coen brothers use this formula of one problem snowballing into a much bigger issue.

Only in the middle portion of the picture does the humor begin to feel slightly tiresome. The snowballs have been piled up high enough and the viewer is left waiting for something to happen. We know that the drug dealer chases Larry’s son after school everyday, we understand that Larry’s neighbors are anti-Semitic, etc. The story scuffles along like this for a few minutes before transcending any run-of-the-mill black comedy and becoming something much greater.

The pace instantly quickens with a memorable talk between Larry and “The Second Rabbi” (George Wyner). Larry is searching for answers to why these horrible things are happening to him, and the Rabbi tells Larry the story of a dentist who finds the word’s “Help me, save me” engraved in Hebrew behind a patient’s lower teeth. Not only is this sequence brilliantly edited, it instantly transforms the film’s tone into something more surreal and deep. The Coen brothers go back to the style they mastered in Barton Fink, where the main character seems to be tossed around in a world he can no longer recognize. Larry’s disconnect from his world is reflected in the repeated nightmare sequences. We’re left wondering if what we’re seeing is real or just another nightmare from which Larry will awake.

While the movie is mostly comedic, it ends fittingly on its darkest note. We exit the theater pondering the meaning of morality in an often-cruel world.