A Serious Man

This post is dedicated to Keith, who has been a serious man when it comes to getting us up and over 100 posts this month.

I never know what to think of the Coen brothers. I liked O Brother, Where Art Thou?, I enjoyed The Big Lebowski, and then really liked No Country For Old Men. But then I re-watched O Brother and found it far more boring the second time around, caught Fargo for the first time and felt totally underwhelmed, and wasn't all that fond of Burn After Reading. Luckily, this movie was a step back in the favorable direction.

There's really not much to it. Most Coen brothers films I've seen have had some overarching themes to them; this was simply about a Midwestern man in the 1960s whose life is falling apart around him. It isn't falling apart in tragic ways as much as it's going to shit. His kids are total assholes. His wife wants a divorce. His good-for-nothing brother is living with the family and causing everyone nothing but grief. He may soon be fired from his job as a physics professor. He's been threatened with a lawsuit by a failing student. It all starts slowly - it's tough, after all, for an unlikable Jewish suburban family from the '60s to be interesting at first - but A Serious Man picks up speed and calamity as it unfolds - unravels, really - and by the halfway mark I was completely on board.

The writing and the lead performance (by Michael Stuhlbarg, who I had previously only seen in the very different role of the cool and powerful Arnold Rothstein on Boardwalk Empire) deserve all the credit in the world for making this simple premise not only bearable but enjoyable. The main character, Larry, finds that perfect balance between sad sack and underdog that allowed me to simultaneously root for him while also taking delight in all of his misfortunes. I had heard a while back that this movie was sort of loosely meant to be a modern rendition of the story of Job from the Bible, where God tested a righteous man's love for Him by making him suffer; I think that's a bit forced, perhaps drawn out by all of the overt Judaism in this movie. Still, this was indeed a movie where a righteous man suffered, and I give it credit for being darkly funny instead of just being dark.