A Serious Man (2009)

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

Story: Joel and Ethan Coen

Cast: Michael Stuhlbarg, Sari Lennick, Fred Melamed

Music: Carter Burwell

Time: 105 minutes

Bottom-line: Darkly funny, superbly acted

One of the most underrated films of 2009, the Coen brothers’ black comedy, A Serious Man, is the tale of a Jewish family that gradually falls apart. The film stars Michael Stuhlbarg, Sari Lennick and Fred Melamed in the lead roles, with Richard Kind, Aaron Wolff and Amy Landecker in the supporting roles. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

 

Stuhlbarg as Larry

The prologue takes place in a village, sometime in the 19^th century, where a man tells his wife that he has invited a friend over for soup. His wife says that the “friend” is a man long dead. She proves her point that it is a ghost by stabbing the guest, but he walks out of their house, bleeding. We then shift to 1967, where Larry Gopnik (Stuhlbarg) is a physics professor in Minnesota. His wife, Judith (Lennick) wants a divorce, to marry a widower, Sy (Melamed). Larry’s son, Danny (Wolff), is a drug addict, his daughter is wasting her life, and his brother, Arthur (Kind) sleeps on the couch, and is working on “the probability map of the universe”. Larry’s student tries to bribe and blackmail him for a higher grade, and he’s warned that he might be fired. Larry also has the pressure of his son’s upcoming Bar Mitzvah. Seeing his wife become attached to Sy, Larry also gets attracted to his voluptuous neighbour (Landecker). It is only a matter of time before the family implodes.

Wolff as Danny

The thing I like most about Coen brothers’ films is the way they involve the cruel twist of fate in their stories. A recurring theme in the film is about uncertainty, that Larry even teaches in his class. The beginning of the film seems to be totally unrelated to the rest of it, but that’s probably just to highlight the Jewish background, and to indicate that the ghost has cursed the family. Every plot twist is satisfying, and the ending is open-ended. Some things are left unsaid, and some people’s fates are left to our interpretation. Some things that Larry does are debatable, but that again, is the interference of fate. To see Larry’s family fall apart is actually melancholic, but the Coens have done so well to instil the dark humour that we chuckle even when we don’t want to.

 

Melamed as Sy, and Lennick as Judith

Michael Stuhlbarg’s acting is the standout performance. Despite all that’s happening around him, it is amazing to see the actor keep a constant expression that mixes every emotion possible – sadness, confusion, desperation, anger and what not. The way his character has been created – to undergo so many shocks and depressions back-to-back, and still survive, is the reason behind the title. All Larry wants to do is to become “a serious man”, but nothing else is going his way. The other notable performance is that of Landecker as the sex-addicted neighbour; it is as though the script was made for the actress. I was surprised to see Simon Helberg play a Jew here as well – he is the actor portraying Howard Wolowitz in The Big Bang Theory.

 

Landecker as the neighbour, and Larry

The cinematography is superbly done, with extensive use of the Dutch angle technique and blurred imagery to highlight the point-of-view of the characters, each one delirious in his own way. A Serious Man is a tad disappointing with the open-ended climax, but the acting, storyline and the visuals are highly commendable.

My Rating: 3.5/5

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 90%