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A Serious Man (2009)

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Time Out rating

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13 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Towards the end of the Coen brothers’ ‘The Big Lebowski’, a black-clad German complains that a situation isn’t fair. ‘Fair?’ splutters Walter Sobchak (John Goodman). ‘Who’s the fucking nihilist around here?!’ Life isn’t fair for the lead of the Coens’ latest, ‘A Serious Man’, either: Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a mild-mannered mathematics professor in 1967 suburban Jewish Minnesota, is struggling with a crumbling marriage, alienated kids, a burdensome brother, malicious professional rumours, a siren neighbour and incessant calls from a mail-order record company. Unlike the nihilists, however, Larry has faith: he is a conscientious Jew and tries to be a serious man. So, to quote a Jefferson Airplane song from the film’s soundtrack, when the truth is found to be lies and all the hope within you dies… Then what?

Glanced at in many of the Coens’ earlier films, Jewishness is front and centre here, from the shtetl-set, Yiddish-speaking prologue to the hermetically Jewish community in which Larry lives. Drawing on the actual milieu of their own adolescence, the filmmakers – past masters of outré production design and sardonic genre subversion – play things relatively straight to tell a story that, for all its plentiful absurdities, is sincerely engaged with the challenge of unjust suffering. Bewildered, desperate, nose twitching in perplexity, Stuhlbarg’s Larry has been compared to Job; understandably, given his host of burdens and the setting’s Old Testament overtones. Yet Larry is perhaps closer to Kafka’s Josef K, another put-upon character who suffers an unwarranted ordeal without quite being heroic.

The Coens nod at some familiar stylistic tropes – florid swearing, sexual euphemism, crusty, aged characters – but the film’s potency is rooted in quiet precision and detailed realisation. Roger Deakins’s typically polished photography gives an oppressively hard edge to Midwestern suburbia while the sound design is a wondrous melange of soup-slurping, hacking coughs, gastric juices and ominous clanging. Stuhlbarg, a Tony-winning stage actor, leads a largely unknown but impeccable cast that also includes Sari Lennick as Larry’s no-nonsense wife, Fred Melamed as her smug, unctuous lover and Richard Kind as Larry’s sad-sack brother, forever draining a cyst on his neck.

Established religion offers Larry little consolation but the idea of faith, or at least good living, that emerges from his struggle matches the sensibility the Coens have unobtrusively espoused throughout their work: reject worldly status, bear trials with humility, find joy in fellow-feeling. Bad things happen to good people. To acknowledge – even, as storytellers, to embrace – this fact is not to indulge in nihilism, but to make more urgent the social task that might mitigate its effects. You better find somebody to love.

Author: Ben Walters 2009-11-17 11:17:58

Time Out London Issue 2048: 19-25 November, 2009

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User reviews of this film

usman khawaja said...

Posted on Nov 21 2009 19:22 ricky -what gloria said is what my date olga said too -
i went to see it as dave gave it 5 stars -
I EXPECTED A WHITE RIBBON -NOT a trashy american exorcism in self indulgence -sorry i got on your nerves but this movie really got on my nerves till i dosed off -haha
coens used to make good films like fargo and big lebowski but that was in last millenium as i can remember them still-
take care mate and have a drink to calm you down -it is just a movie

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Gloria said...

Posted on Nov 21 2009 18:23 pseudo-intellectualism at its worst. Maybe Ken Peggs below is correct, the movie/joke is only good and makes sense if you watch the last 15 seconds. Well, I don't think I have to be tortured just to get there, and in fact, decided it wasn't worth it as I walked out of the movie as well.
Question for Rick, were in the movie or something? Or is your last name Coen? Otherwise, I think you might need help removing that pole from your arse. People are allowed to not like a movie darling.

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Nov 21 2009 17:57 OH RICKY MATE -shredded raw merves -lolz
take it easy its just a movie mate -haha-i hated transfockers -
i loved public enemies and harry brown -
and its not alison its olga and we retreated from COUPLES TRTREAT -I LABEL IT AS -RETREATING CINEMA -
BUT THERE IS ANOTHER GREAT COMPETITION FOR COENS -THE MOVIE CALLED MEN STARING AT GOATS -
u will love it with your high intellect and hurry before it gets thrown out of cimnemas -haha

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Paul said...

Posted on Nov 20 2009 23:52 boring!

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tobster said...

Posted on Nov 20 2009 23:27 This was so boring and pointless that it actually started to give me a headache. Tries too hard to be quirky and ends up being irritating.

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Rick said...

Posted on Nov 20 2009 21:19 Hey, Usman, let's get one thing straight, buddy. The film wasn't made for an "intellectual" audience, but it sure as hell wasn't made for your Transformers crowd, either. Are you aware of the kind of films the Coen brothers make? What were you expecting when you blindly stumbled into the auditorium? Admit it. You thought it was going be something along the lines of knuckledragger favourites like Couples Retreat or All About Steve. Right? No-one needs to take an IQ test to appreciate A Simple Man. Just a little "above-average" intelligence is all that's required. Sadly, you and poor little alison just don't have it and, sadly, you never will. That's why they make lowest common denominator garbage like New Moon. Unencumbered by wit, style or substance, the film is right up your alley, khawaja. Off you go!

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thierryhenri said...

Posted on Nov 20 2009 20:57 pathetic this film ! the brothers are getting tired

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Nov 20 2009 12:44 rick -
i am sure you are einstein -have you taken the advanced IQ test on FB -WHAT WAS YOUR SCORE MATE -
from the quality of your comment and your leering language i am sure it was immensely incredible -
holykemp i am sorry i did not listen to you -from next time i will take directions off your wisdom and not some incorrigible pseudo -intellectuals

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Nov 20 2009 12:36 dreadful -dull and dreary and made me drowsy and i dozed off as well-thanks to dave calhoun -my dearest friend -thank god i was able to drive home -but only because my date was drubbing me for dragging her to this damned disgrace -

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alison said...

Posted on Nov 19 2009 12:33 I just thought it was incredibly boring.

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rick said...

Posted on Nov 19 2009 00:18 Hey "holykemp", you walked into the wrong movie, buddy, so no wonder it all went over your head. But don't sweat. To accommodate your IQ they've made New Moon so start lining up, dumbo.

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Ken Peggs said...

Posted on Oct 29 2009 10:44 Barton Fink meets the Wonder Years. The clever layering of theme and symbolism is brought into devestating (yet still ambiguous) relief in the last 15 seconds of the movie. Of course, you won't get the tragic joke if you don't listen to the punchline...

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holykemp said...

Posted on Oct 11 2009 20:10 I've never walked out in the middle of a movie....until now. Utterly unwatchable, the actors were terrible and over-acted in every scene, and I couldn't tell whether the suffocating stereotypes were attempting to be ironic or were just plain uncreative.

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