A Serious Man (2009)

VERDICT:
7/10 Pushovers

Not quite the story of my life, but it’s hard to go wrong with the Coens.

A Serious Man is about a Jewish guy in the late ’60s who just can’t catch a break. His wife is leaving him for reasons neither of them can understand, one of his students is trying to bribe him because he won’t give the kid a passing grade, his brother with a gambling problem and a massive sist won’t move out or get a job and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

It all really boils down to watching this guy trying to hold it all together while getting shit on from every direction and, despite his best efforts, receive zero help from everyone around him. No, it’s not much of a pick-me-upper, but thankfully this thing is directed by the Coen brothers instead of, say, Darren Aronofsky (even though Darren Aronofsky’s the man).

Look, I don’t really need to say a whole lot about the Coen brothers because everyone should probably have realized at this point in the history of the world that these cats know what the hell they’re doing. They’re pros, they don’t fuck around, and even when they do fuck around, they do it like pros. Not sure that statement makes perfect sense, but just go with me on this one.

Aside from being total perfectionists, one of the many things that makes the Coen brothers’ movies stand out is their dead-on comedic timing, their sandpaper-with-a-mean-case-of-eczema dry, deadpan sense of humor and the way they make an audience laugh at things that might otherwise compel theaters to start handing out packs of Prozac at the door. There’s a lot of that here and that, folks, is a very good thing. Yeah, A Serious Man is a Debbie Downer, but as much as you feel bad at the guy, it’s hard not to get a kick at how absurd his whole damn life is. Almost gets Seinfeld-ian at times.

So, the writing and technical aspects are solid as usual, but I’ve also yet to see a Coen brothers production where the cast sucks. Pretty sure these guys could make a movie about Nic Cage, Rob Pattinson and Steven Seagal quoting lines from Sex and the City for two hours and the thing would still hit all the right notes, but let’s all continue to hope that theory never gets put to the test.

With that being said, I thought Michael Stuhlbarg (who I never knew existed before this seeing this movie) was really good as our “serious” man, Larry Gopnik. Well, everyone’s good in their respective roles here, but I feel like his performance got kinda overshadowed this year for some reason or other and that right there is a bummer. Granted, Colin Firth and Jeff Bridges did kick ass this year, but props to the dude for getting right into the role and I’m looking forward to seeing more of him.

And if that wasn’t enough, the Coens threw in some pretty choice ’60s tunes in here for good measure, one of which plays a very entertaining role towards the end of the movie and might just be my favorite scene of the whole thing.

So, yeah, I liked A Serious Man, it’s good stuff on a lot of levels, but I think the thing that’s holding it back for me was that I can’t exactly relate to it. It’s not so much that I’m not Jewish and as a result can’t identify with growing up in a Jewish household, it’s more that there was a generational and cultural gap going between my own upbringing as an ’80s baby and not being able to see myself or my own family in that of the Gopnicks. My stepdad on the other hand totally identified with this movie and gained a much greater appreciation for it than I did, and even though it would have been nice to have that connection myself and even though there’s not a whole lot I can do about it without getting a DeLorean, a flux capacitor and a life-altering religious epiphany, there’s still a lot to enjoy.

Not their best movie by any means, the story’s fine, it kinda drags on after a while and the ending is…something else, but hey, it’s the Coen brothers.

Total pros.