Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring Michael Stuhlbarg, Fred Melamed, Richard Kind, Aaron Wolf, Sari Wagner, Jessica McManus, Adam Arkin
Rated R for profanity, nudity, a brief sexual scene, and brief violence
Rating - 1 bullet hole
I recently heard a podcast discussing Bhutan’s philosophy of Gross National Happiness. I don’t believe it is a philosophy that Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) would subscribe to.
It’s 1967. Larry’s life is not going well. His wife Judith (Sari Lennick) approaches him about a divorce with the indifference of a real estate agent discussing property tax values. She is leaving him for a family friend (Fred Melamed) who treats Larry delicately as if he is a child they are getting ready to alienate. His own kids don’t respect him. As a college physics professor who is up for tenure, his reputation is being threatened by a student attempting to blackmail him for a passing grade. His brother-in-law Arthur (Richard Kind) is sleeping on the family’s sofa and has a cyst that he is constantly draining, among other problems. Oh did I mention this is a comedy?
The Coen brothers are masters of the dark comedy (Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski) yet their last three (Burn After Reading, The Ladykillers, and Intolerable Cruelty albeit not really a dark comedy) have been misfires. That losing streak is over with a vengeance.
A Serious Man is seriously funny. Some of the humor is laugh out loud until you hurt. Some of it is more subdued. All of it is brilliant. Of course, who else but the Coens could craft such a meticulous and smart comedy about Jewish suffering? While I loved this film, I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t relate to it as well as my Hebrew brethren. In my screening, I was the youngest person by at least a decade and probably the only Gentile. My fellow movie-goers were laughing so uproariously, I feared some of them might require hospitalization.
The real standout here is Michael Stuhlbarg. I was completely unfamiliar with him. He has done bit parts on TV and a few small film roles here and there. His obscurity is probably over. This guy is a terrific actor. He plays a man who is trying so hard to be a good man. A Godly man. But is he being tested? Is he cursed (a possibility given the bizarre and Coenian prologue of the film)? Stuhlbarg strikes a perfect note with his performance. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone funnier at conveying incredulity seeping through the cracks of strained exasperation.
This is a near perfect film. The screenplay and the direction…what other adjectives are left for the Coen brothers? The cinematography is flawless thanks again to longtime Coen collaborator Roger Deakins. And the music by Carter Burwell…well, he is simply one of the best composers working today. But that ending…
In the past decade, we’ve seen a rash of films with ambiguous endings. Sometimes it works for me (No Country for Old Men, Limbo) but other times, it comes across as pretentious. I’m not really sure how to classify this one, but it frustrated me. In some ways, it seems so obvious that I’m sure I’m missing something. The ending doesn’t ruin the film by any stretch, but it does come across as heavy-handed.
The Coens excel at making films that go against everything I hate about the factory of Hollywood. They create original and iconic characters. They are masters of dialogue. They dance effortlessly between the absurd and the dramatic. When it comes to comedy, they’re dead serious.
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