A Serious Man (2009)

Directed by: Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg

**1/2

I can't in good conscience suggest that A Serious Man fails in any way because I know the work of Joel and Ethan Coen well enough to realize that everything (very likely) worked exactly how they intended. That having been said, A Serious Man doesn't top my list of great Coen films. I found it all too frustrating to watch most of the time and that isn't necessarily because Larry Gopnick (Michael Stuhlbarg) can't seem to have anything go right for him, but rather because the idiots that surround him just seem to make everything worse.

I think A Serious Man is about the ups and downs of life. This is why we're tossed right into the mix of Larry's life (opening fable excluded) and suffer through it with him until the end when we don't really get the closure for which we're looking. The Coen's aren't trying to suggest that life sucks, then we die but rather there are stretches of time within one's life when everything seems to be going wrong. Larry is the exaggerated example of this. The less exaggerated and more common example is the story told of Dr. Sussman, a dentist who's life gets complicated because someone has an engraving on the inside of his teeth. Dr. Sussman becomes so fixated on his mystery that it effects his life and a more dramatic way than should have been necessary. Larry does everything he can to prevent his life from continuing its downward spiral but it doesn't mattter.

It must be mentioned that Stuhlbarg is great in this film as Larry Gopnick. Its no surprise that the Coen's found the perfect actor to play a part in their film but Stuhlbarg portrayal of Gopnick I think should be in the same conversation as Goodman's Walter Sobchack, Macy's Jerry Lundegard and dare I say, Bridges' The Dude. Put these performances in a line, Stuhlbarg would likely come in last but its a perfect performance in a Coen movie.

If I'm being completely honest, I didn't really like A Serious Man. Just because I'm certain the Coen's accomplished everything they set out to do, doesn't mean it worked for me. I found myself often bored and even more often fed up with what Larry was going through. Had he just been having a rough patch in his life I think I may have sympathized with him but when he continuously looks for guidence from the least qualified to give guidence people in the world I kind of wonder if what he's dealing with is a direct result of the company he's kept. So many of these characters are not characters at all. Like the Minnesota residents in Fargo the supporting cast are mostly caricatures.... just Jewish instead of Midwestern.

As I touched on, Gopnick himself could be considered a caricature. He's an exaggerated version of and average Joe with the weight of the world on his shoulders. To make this work however, I needed to feel a little bit more compassion and sympathy for him. To keep my attention for the whole more, I kind wanted some light at the end of the tunnel for Gopnick. I chalk A Serious Man up as one of the Coen's setup films for their next masterpiece. I'm hoping Burn After Reading and A Serious Man are the Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers prior to No Country for Old Men.