A Serious Man- **** out of ****

The Coen brothers have yet to make a disappointing movie in my eyes. Their dark comedy, "Fargo," is my favorite film of all-time, so my standards are set quite high. Regardless, their latest darkly comic drama is a homerun, scoring serious points for remaining true to their style while exploring a supernatural aspect that felt simultaneously felt different and like something that they've had up their sleeves for years now.

The film opens with a Yiddish language prologue where a wife tells a man that the man he met on the road may be a dybbuk- a demon that inhabits the body of the recently dead. We then move on to our main character, Larry Gopnik, a Jewish man whose life begins to seriously suck recently. He wonders and seeks advice from three rabbis, but he continues to wonder God is doing to him. Is he a modern version of the infamous story of Job?

For those of you unfamiliar with that story, in the Bible, Satan goes to heaven and talks to God. He makes a bet that Job, who has always been faithful, would curse God's name if he took everything away from him. God takes away his assets, including his family, who are killed tragically. After everything, God then covers his body in boils, and Job picks up a rock, says "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away," and begins to scrape all the growths off.

If you're like me, you have many questions for God, but for the sake of story, let's just accept it temporarily and continue. His wife announces that she wants a divorce as she runs away from his best friend, Sy Ableman, who greets him with a bottle of wine and a hug after leaving several messages with the subject, "Let's have a nice talk." His daughter and brother are stealing money, the daughter most likely for a nose job and the son for pot. The son hides the money he owes in his transistor radio which is then confiscated. He tries not to get his ass kicked by the dealer/bully, but in the meantime, this stoner has a Bar Mitzvah coming up. His brother sleeps on the couch and has to drain his cysts with a suction device that makes a disgusting sound and provides a worse mental image. Worse yet, with his tenure meeting coming up, he is left to be bribed and then threatened to be blackmailed for taking the bribe by the same student that failed his midterm. A very interesting note- the student failed the midterm for not understanding the mathematics portion of physics but claimed to get the allegories. This is a theme to watch for in the rest of the film.

Larry goes to visit the aforementioned "three rabbis" to no avail. One has an unusual fascination with the parking lot. The second tells a fascinating story about an orthodontist who discovers that a man has the words, "help me save me" written in Hebrew on the inside of his teeth, but but Larry learns that he would have been better off not hearing the story in the first place. The third...well, I wouldn't give that away. It's much more interesting to discover what the Coens have to say rather than have it explained to you.

Everything considered, this movie is damn funny. Every actor, although most are unknowns, come up like the parts were written for them. Michael Stuhlbarg from the stage being the most famous actor, embodies Larry Gopnik to craft a Job that lives in doubt as his world comes crashing down. This actor received a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal, but this reviewer feels disappointed that he was left out come Oscar-time. There is also Fred Melamed who plays one of the Coens' best characters, Sy Ableman. The character crafted is one of sweet simplicity but with an unmentioned creepiness to keep everything he does under a microscope.

I was reminded of several other movies. The awakening Gopnik has reminded me of Lester Burnham's awakening in "American Beauty," but what each does with the awakening is quite different. Larry's brother had me considering a cross between David Helfgott from "Shine" and Walter from "The Big Lebowski." Although I was reminded of other similarities, this is ultimately the Coen Brothers' film, and it is an original journey into such.

This is one of the year's best films and a new favorite in my collection. I will explain no more except the fact that the Coens have made "Fargo," "No Country for Old Men," and now "A Serious Man." They are born filmmakers, and I am confident that "A Serious Man" will be a film studied by students in the future.

Rated R for language, some sexuality/nudity, and some brief violence.
Buy the movie here.
Look out for a future posting where I analyze some motives I believed were present in the film.