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Joel and Ethan Coen specialize in making films so thickly layered that it’s very easy to get lost. Many of their scenes seem to mean nothing in the context of the film, but in fact mean a great deal. This is especially true in their newest comedy, “A Serious Man.”
The story takes place in 1967 and follows physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), whose life quite abruptly starts to come unraveled.
His layabout brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is living on his couch, his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) is preparing to leave him for the overly touchy Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), money issues are plaguing him, and no one, not his rabbi nor anyone else, seems to be able to tell him why everything’s suddenly going to crap.
Not helping things are his apparently Jew-hating neighbor and a student that is preparing to sue him for NOT taking bribe money for a better grade.
“A Serious Man” is filled to the brim with dark humor. Larry’s struggle to figure out why his life has taken this downturn leads him to several rabbis, who tell him cryptic stories about teeth and parking lots. Secular advice proves equally useless, with his lawyer (Adam Arkin) commiserating with his pain and telling him to expect the worst, but able to offer no help that isn’t billed by the hour.
The opening scene of the film takes place in Poland a century before the events in the rest of the film and feature a couple beset by a neighbor who may or may not be a dybbuk, a kind of evil spirit. It can be rather confusing. I, for one, was convinced I had wandered into the wrong movie theatre. It’s not until much later that one begins to make the connection between the couple randomly beset by evil and misfortune and Larry’s own life.
Larry is in many ways a modern-day Job. His faith, not only in God, but in people and the very precepts by which he lived his life before, is tested to the utmost. One wonders exactly how comedy can be squeezed from such a situation, yet it happens. Let it never be said that a man’s life falling to pieces all around him can’t be fun to watch.
It’s really a shame that comedies are very rarely accorded the same esteem as more “serious” movies, because this one is an accomplishment. The Coen brothers have created a multi-layered cinematic experience. As in so many of their films, that which means nothing could mean everything…or it could mean nothing at all. Definitely a must-see.
