A Serious Man is the new Coen brothers movie set in a heavily Jewish Minneapolis suburb, similar to where the Coen brothers grew up, in about 1970. I saw it a week ago and the more I think about it the more I like it.
It starts with a short fable set in a Polish shtetl and told in Yiddish with subtitles. I've seen some debate or wonder about it its meaning. I think it's just a self-contained opening story that foreshadows the main story. It explores a similar theme and sets up the main story as another fable.
The film shifts to the main story and starts off a little slow, shifting between two scenes who's connection isn't clear at all. As the film progresses it all starts to come together as the story of Larry Gopnik and his family. Larry is a physics professor up for tenure at his school. He has two teenage children and his wife abruptly announces that she's leaving him for a widower neighbor. In fact, everything in his life seems to be going wrong, from his unemployed brother living with him to a student who may be bribing him for a passing grade.
The film is obviouslly a dark comic retelling of the Book of Job. There's a lot written about how "Jewish" the film is, but I just saw it as part of the setting and perfectly appropriate for an updated Job. I don't see it as any different than how "Indian" Slumdog Millionaire was or how "South African" District 9 was. There are some Yiddish words used and you just have to figure out what they mean but it's not difficult. I seem to recall some funny accents in Fargo too.
It's not as showy as in other films, but this is as perfectly constructed as other Coen brothers films. The cinematography, editing, sound, etc. all just help to tell the story. This is certainly one of the best films I've seen this year
*Spoilers*
I had remembered the story of Job as a contest between God and the Devil that put pious man through terrible events and he never renounced God. As I read up on it after seeing the film there's more to it than that. Three of his friends say that he must of done something to offend God because righteous men aren't punished for no reason. In fact in the end God says that he is God and can do whatever he wants and man can't understand his motivations (just as we can't understand all that must go into having created the universe). The friends are punished for their misunderstanding of God and Job is rewarded with riches and new children and long life (too bad about those first children I guess).
The point of the opening fable of the dybbuk. We don't know if he was actually a ghost. Depending on this, the wife either saved them or damned them through her actions; but at the end of the story we don't know which it is. Compare this to Larry physics lectures about Schrodinger's Cat and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the tale the second Rabbi tells; the dentist never finds out how the goy ended up with the message in his teeth and we don't know (or care) what happened to the goy.
We don't know why lots of events in Larry's life happen: why Judith is leaving him, who is sending the letters to the tenure committee and if it was Sy if they were bad or actually good, if Clive left the bribe, exactly what the brother did, etc. Lots seems to be going wrong, but close to the end, lots of things seem to be going well. He's back with Judith, his son is Bar Mitzvahed, he gets tenure.
Some of these are dubious, I doubt Larry would be proud that his son was stoned during his Bar Mitzvah. I had friends who weren't sure if they liked the uncertainty of the ending, but I thought it was perfect. It leaves us back to uncertainty not knowing how the x-ray or tornado turns out and leaving us wondering if it was retribution for his passing Clive. Things just happen and we often try to find meaning to it all and it just isn't to be.
I like that they made Larry a physicist to compare modern with ancient attempts at understanding the universe. I like even more that they added Jefferson Airplane into the comparison, "When the truth is found to be lies/And all the joy within you dies/Don't you want somebody to love." That seems as a good an answer an anything.
Andrew O’Hehir in Salon has a nice interview with the Coen brothers about A Serious Man.
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