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For college physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael
Stuhlbarg), life is falling apart. For seemingly no reason,
his wife wants to divorce him and be with his colleague.
His children have no respect for him; the son steals money
to support a marijuana habit and the daughter steals money
to save up for a nose job. ***
His brother has little to no social skills, and because
he lacks the ability to take care of himself, he lives in
Larry's house. At school, the father of a South Korean exchange
student is threatening to sue, which is awkward since the
student may or may not have bribed Larry for a better grade.
He's up for tenure, yet the impending divorce and a property
dispute with his neighbor has him up to his neck in legal
fees. It seems the only good thing he has going for him
is attending his son's bar mitzvah. ***
We expect quirkiness from a Coen Brothers' film. We
might even expect bleakness. "A Serious Man" gives us all
that, and then goes one step further by being philosophically
profound. Not profound in that boisterous, overstated way--in
which a speech is made and everyone learns a valuable lesson--but
in that silent, underhanded way, where theme, character,
and plot reveal themselves slowly through carefully constructed
symbols. ***
Symbolism is tricky because you always run the risk
of overdoing it; even wonderful films like "Milk," "Gran
Torino," and "W." occasionally fell victim to obvious imagery.
With "A Serious Man," most of the symbolism is reserved
for cleverly worded anecdotes, which paradoxically explain
nothing. Larry is a faithful man, yet the rabbis he visits
can't seem to give him decent spiritual advice. Then again,
is it possible to find the answers on the outside when the
problems are within? ***
Stuhlbarg is perfectly cast, playing Larry not as the
raving comical figure one might expect from a man in his
situation. Rather, he plays him as a quietly desperate man,
someone who sees everything around him yet can't process
how it has all gone wrong. The more he tries to understand
the meaning of his life, the less he ultimately discovers.
***
Why, for example, has his wife, Judith (Sari Wagner
Lennick), never given any indication that their marriage
was in trouble? Why does she want to be with Sy Ableman
(Fred Melamed), a man so phony and obnoxious that he should
be hated on general principles? Why did Larry have to move
into a motel when it would have been much easier for Judith
to move in with Sy? Maybe the answers lie with the elusive
Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandell), who Larry has been having
trouble making an appointment to see. ***
What this movie so brilliantly conveys is that paralyzing
sense of being on your own in an unsympathetic world. This
applies to the look as well as to the people; the Coen Brothers,
who grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota during the 1960s,
have faithfully recreated that time and place, pitting their
protagonist against a frighteningly routine mid-twentieth
century landscape of identical rambler homes and neatly
manicured lawns. ***
But the fact that Larry is having a hard time doesn't
necessarily mean we nothing but sympathy for him; he thinks
he can solve all his problems simply by visiting rabbis,
when in fact they can only provide him with metaphorical
observations and long-winded fables that don't really go
anywhere. He seeks an insightful message when in fact there
isn't one to give, save maybe for the lyrics of a Jefferson
Airplane song. ***
Aside from Larry, the film's most engaging character
is his brother, Arthur (Richard Kind), a man whose notebook
of rambling mathematical formulas blurs the line between
genius and insanity. He physically represents his social
awkwardness: Overweight, tall, and perpetually hunched over,
with a cyst on the back of his neck that he continuously
drains with a special suction machine. ***
He seems like a decent person at heart, although that
doesn't mean he isn't capable of doing something wrong.
There comes a point when he runs off half naked, crying
like a five-year-old while ranting about how unfair God
has been to him. He looks at Larry and sees not a miserable
soul whose life is falling apart, but as someone who lucked
out by getting married and having children. Is he right?
I guess that depends on how you define being lucky. ***
Some audiences will not appreciate the ending, which
symbolically makes it clear that virtually nothing has been
resolved. We do, however, get a wonderful visual representation
of a turning point, something the Coen Brothers are known
for including in their films. It's an image that emphasizes
more than life's unpredictability; it also emphasizes a
new chapter in Larry's life, one we aren't meant to see
but know will be just as challenging. One can only hope
that he eventually finds the answers he has been looking
for. ***
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