Focus FeaturesReview in a Hurry: The Coen Brothers, once again, artfully defy conventional Hollywood storytelling, filling their frightening and funny new movie with wormy characters and frigid themes. And while compelling, this tale of a professor facing down the very bleakness of life sacrifices some of its humanity along the way.
The Bigger Picture: Make no mistake, this is an artsy movie. In that it's artfully shot, deals with heady themes about the uncertainty of existence, relies extensively on dialogue and has a malleable, at best, story arc.
So while there are moments when A Serious Man feels like a bleak exercise in futility, overall it's a mature and engrossing work—something we'd expect from the brothers whose work swings easily between high jinks (Burn After Reading) and high art (No Country for Old Men).
See, the 1960s prairie can be a tough place for the Jews! Especially when G-d doles out one body blow after another. Larry (Michael Stuhlbarg) is part of an insular community of American-born Jews in Minnesota. So when his wife announces she wants a divorce and his chances at a promotion in the college physics department suddenly look grim, Larry turns to rabbis and his numbers to help him hash out the answers.
Where else can such an outsider find comfort, and direction? All avenues, though, lead to more confusion and anxiety.
One night, for example, when Larry is forced to sleep in a motel because his wife has taken up with an obnoxious lover, he dreams that he is writing an impossibly intricate theorem on a 30-foot black board in front of his apathetic college class. The bell suddenly rings and in a totally sincere tone, Larry cries out to his students, "You understand none of this but you will be responsible for it on the midterm!"
Larry's panicked statement is the essence of the movie—and why it ultimately works. It's equal parts funny and frightening, right in the sweet spot of Joel and Ethan Coen's unique ability to blend deadpan irreverence and gravity.
Larry's need is to solve life's puzzles, none of which are that extraordinary—a failed marriage, rebellious kids, financial troubles. But the Coens skillfully manage to make the those problems amusing and deeply unsettling. If Larry has done everything right, why is the universe pulling at the threads of his life? Is this all some kind of test?
No one has the answer.
The 180—a Second Opinion: Now, much praise has been heaped onto the Bros for the soulful way they capture the emptiness of life (No Country, Barton Fink) but is that so difficult? Can't you just walk outside for that sort of thing?
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