#025 - A Serious Man (2009)

Director: Joel & Ethan Coen

Writer: Joel & Ethan Coen

Runtime: 105 min.

I have to be honest. I needed a little bit of help with this one. I'm about as big a Coen Brothers fan as there is--I've seen all of their writing/directing credits with the exception of 1985's formerly Sam Raimi-helmed Crimewave and the vignette compilation To Each His Own Cinema--but I wasn't immediately able to pick up on what exactly made this movie so clever or charming. So I took to the reviews. I pulled up Metacritic and browsed, read a few and tried to gauge what the general reaction was to this one. To be blunt, it sounds like a lot of critics thought this film was hilarious but can't really explain why.

Hmm.

Have the Coens so thoroughly outdone themselves year in and year out that now people take for granted the fact that their films are going to be fantastic? I found The Ladykillers to be a bit of a throw away marked by an absurd Tom Hanks spawn and Burn After Reading to be generally goofy but largely unmemorable. Otherwise, look at the list--Fargo, No Country For Old Men, The Big Lebowski, Barton Fink, Raising Arizona--upon presenting these titles to a couple friends of mine, their jaws just dropped continually further: "They did ALL of those?!" I even told them straight out that I didn't particularly know what the story was behind A Serious Man but I knew it was the Coens so I was going anyway. It wasn't the eye-opening experience that seeing No Country For Old Men was, but I certainly wasn't disappointed. Judging from the landscape of professional reviews, however, I'm not so sure if critics aren't just lapping up the Coen Kool-Aid without giving it a second thought.

And I kind of think they know this.

The story centers on Larry Gopnik (renowned theatre actor Michael Stuhlbarg), a college professor whose life seems to be heading right into the crapper. His wife wants a divorce, his children are insufferable brats, and his brother moves in and blankets his house with multiple legal and medical issues. He's even being blackmailed by a physics student and heckled by an anonymous opponent to his tenure review. There are tons of negative things going on, but they are handled in a very realistic and subtle fashion, and Stuhlbarg expertly absorbs them all with a near constant expression of "you've got to be shitting me".

More than anything, after the movie was over, while trying to collect my thoughts, I kept looping through one specific concept: Here's a movie where the Coens grab us by the collar and say, "We're going to mess with your head, and make you feel what we want you to feel." They were flexing their filmmaking muscles. And not just for you to "ooo" and "aah" over, but rather for you to be pulled along for the ride and whipped in any direction they so choose. One review I saw made a strange claim that it was a comedy film that was shot and scored as if it was horror. Strange, that is, until after I saw the movie, at which point I decided, "Holy crap they're right." With lots of angled close-ups and slow camera movement, and slow, deliberate motions by the actors, they created a really tense atmosphere even though the story was easily one that they could have made into a slapstick comedy. It seemed like a forceful hand--"We know how to make you feel dread, so we'll make you feel dread." As far as I'm concerned, it worked to a T. There was something ominous sort of bubbling along underneath the storyline, I felt uncomfortable, I felt like the story was going to rip apart at its seams and spiral out of control. But instead of spiraling, it was more of a merry-go-round, slowly bobbing its way around and around, coming to enough points of equilibrium to make you think that there was going to be a final resolution (or--look away!--a happy ending).

The movie definitely puts the Coen Brothers' strong grasp of suburban society on full display, maybe even more so than any of their previous films (though Fargo and Raising Arizona were quite sharp). Usually, I feel like their stories involve characters or actions that are quite out of the ordinary, and maybe that's what some people dislike about this movie--that nothing spectacular is going on, that we can all identify with his life and sympathize with him without being tickled by voyeurism of the extravagant. I was particularly fond of Larry's interactions with Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), the man for whom his wife has chosen to leave. Just watching him being forced to sit down and talk about the logistics of a separation and remarriage gave me a bit of a burning sensation in my chest, sympathizing with Larry. It's funny, but cruel, and as one event snowballed into another, I really found myself adopting that same "you've got to be shitting me" look.

In all, it probably wasn't one of their most memorable films. I doubt it'll produce a strong cult following or ignite a recital of one-liners, but it served as a very good cinematic exercise for the already phenomenally accomplished brothers. They re-worked their strongest muscles and even made time for a few new ones. And I, like a lot of Coen fans, have full faith that they KNOW exactly what they're doing, so while it likely won't end up on any Oscar radar, it stands as another example of how talented (and dark humored) they are as filmmakers.