A Serious Man (2009)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

As someone who's gone to a Jewish day school for 13 years, this movie is hysterical, letting me understand a lot of subtle jokes, like when Danny reaches for his head while running in the wind for his Yamaka, and other really true Jewish stereotypes which may be more subtle to those watching the movie who are not Jewish. But seriously, you do not have to be Jewish to appreciate and enjoy this film. The main family is Jewish, but the movie as a whole is making a statement about religion and the concept of God as a whole (I happen to be an atheist by the way even though I've gone to Jewish day school). Anyone who can appreciate the concept of religion and faith will get a lot out of A Serious Man. Being honest, I'm the kind of person who when I hear something is about religion, I go into it thinking it's going to be boring, and it's going to be attempting to hypnotize me or something. Yet this movie is very different. Remember, it's directed by the Coen Brothers. They make movies about crime, and violence, not "Praise the Lord" crazy religious propaganda. The plot of the movie also revolves a lot about the idea of karma, and why do bad things happen to good things. The movie relies on the idea that there is a god, and not just any god, but a god who really couldn't care less about you, and is ready to let you die at a finger snap. The movie is full of quick turns of good and bad in the life of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), establishing the point that God will just do what he wants, and even the slightest wrongdoing may make him choose it's time for you to die. As a whole, I really enjoyed this movie. I thought it had a really good idea behind it, and love bringing the Coen Brothers style in on a movie about religion. Although the movie could have brought some more explanations to it about why Sy Ableman's name makes everyone gasp, and the ending could have gone a bit more in depth, and parts of it were a bit to vague for my liking. But putting that aside, A Serious Man is definitely a movie I'd recommend.

Only the Coen bros. could think of something as marvelous as taking the opening lyrics of "Somebody to Love" by Jefferson Airplane and turning them into a Jewish proverb. Somehow, after an hour and a half of pure mishegas from the perspective of a real schlemiel, those lyrics sounded just right coming from Rabbi Marshak. A Serious Man was most notably a surprise dark horse nomination for Best Picture in 2009. In most award-seasons, A Serious Man is the kind of film that you'd wish was nominated in every category.It's a humble project for the Coens, but don't ever underestimate what they can do. A Serious Man is a serious picture that makes you laugh and squirm at the misfortune of Larry Gopnik. An average mid-western Jewish man searching for reason in a time where there is none. Tested is he to make peace with HaShem when all around him is moral decay and temptation. The Coens strength is in their characters, which in this film are as rich as they've ever been. I was fascinated by Arthur Gopnik, a borderline autistic man who discovers a map of the universe while tending to his sebaceous cyst. Perhaps my favorite character was Sy Ableman, a self proclaimed "serious man" from the community who Larry's wife is cheating on him with. His purposely affected anglo-saxon accent nearly killed me. It's the littlest eccentricities of people that the Coens always explore and exploit and it's eternally delightful.

Technically brilliant; challenging, in many ways a masterpiece.Yet, nonetheless, unwatchable.A Serious Man (2013) opens with a sequence - dream? flashback? - in which a man is presumed to be a ghost, and stabbed through the heart. In many ways, Becker treats his audience in a similar way.ASM is an essay on the hopelessness of hope. The terror of love. The misery of existence.I wish I hadn't read it.

It kind of cracks me up when I read people saying they do not understand this movie and that makes it a bad movie. (People today love simplistic answers - even if they are wrong. It is much more reassuring that having to think). In this case at least isn't this the point though? Life IS like that. The core of the movie seems to be about the inscrutability of the universe and of God's purpose. Or is there a God? It does not ask this question outright - but it is hanging there. Together with the question we all have - we are convinced there must be an answer to - what is OUR purpose? Poor old Larry Gubnik, always being a serious man. Always doing what's right and in return being served up a big steaming pile of drek. Seeking answers from God (or the Rabbi) and getting nonsense - or getting no answer at all. Very dark. But I have been there myself at times in my life when all of my plans have been crapped upon by the universe - trying the same things Larry tried, asking the same questions Larry asked but - Silence. So I get it. I get what Larry is going through. And of course some reviewers have pointed out the similarities to the biblical story of Job. But did anyone else pick up the symbolism in the movie of Larry, up on the roof, twisting the TV antenna to get a better reception - a message from the ether? When this is also exactly the theme of the movie. Poor old Larry cannot even get "F Troop" clearly. How can he expect to get a clear message from God. This was not a coincidence, folks. Those sneeky Coen brothers!The movie also raises issues many Jews specifically have had to ask themselves in the face of say, writ large, the holocaust. Jews confronted by outright malice and evil or by just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time ask themselves that eternal question. If there is a God, why does he let bad things happen. For some this was the trigger to turn off religion. For others it strengthened their faith somehow. So at another level the movie is about what is it about to be a Jew and to ask yourself the same questions that Jews have asked themselves down the ages. In this case "What's going on?" as the Coen's express it.Also I have a sneeky feeling this movie is also biographical in a way. The Coens grew up in the twin cities area of USA in the 1960s I have read. They would have been Bar Mitvah'd in a synagogue much like the one depicted and the Jewish characters would have been much like those depicted too. The life questions they may have asked themselves as they became adults would have been much like those asked in the movie and even if all the bad stuff did not happen to them personally they may well have feared it would - will I get an urgent call from my doctor about a routine xray? Will my kid's Bar Mitzvah go OK. Will my wife run off with another man, taking everything I have including my family, self respect and my understanding of who I am? In other words perhaps all the normal stuff of life. But written in bold type both because us Jews are a neurotic bunch and because it is damn good material for black comedy. As Woody Allen found out before them.But of course the Coens would not have gotten any answers to these questions just as Larry did not. Silence. Zip. Bupkis. But there is one thing I learned that life taught me and maybe this is part of the message too. Nice guys too often DO finish last. If you are too nice, too compliant, too good, people will take advantage and crap on you. And maybe the universe does too, although in its case, not because it is malicious, but rather, just uncaring. And that is a lesson poor old Larry never learned.