SPOTLIGHTS
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| A Serious Man Review |
| Posted by Erik Luers on 10.07.2009 |
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Finally the Coen Brothers have gone kosher again. Their new film, A Serious Man, about Jewish identity in late 1960s America, is hilarious and strangely sweet. It's the Coens' best film since, well, No Country For Old Men, just two years ago.
Our main character, Larry Gopnik, a loyal physics teacher, is being cheated on by his wife and his daughter wants a nosejob and his son wants to watch F Troop when he should be preparing for his Bar Mitzvah and his brother won't look for a job and find his own place and a Korean student tries to bribe him into getting a better grade. I realize that was a very descriptive run on sentence, but it's for a man who's life never seems to calm down. The film's tagline could most certainly read, "oy vey."
Larry wants to do right by society, but he keeps catching a bad break; if he were any less optimistic, he would've snapped and killed himself already. He's a happier version of Woody Allen. He is also the bumbling do-gooder who's life never does him any good. Time to consult the three rabbis.
Since this is a dark comedy, you expect some cruel and malicious characters and actions (a dream sequence involving the two brothers saying goodbye is very moving, that is until anti-semetism intervenes), and the Coens deliver in spades. They're good at this. I found last year's Burn After Reading to be a dopey joke in search of a point, but this new film is about something.
Many will suspect that this is the Coens' most personal film, and they will probably be right. Every stereotype feels completely real and authentic (as real and authentic as stereotypes can be, at least), including the woman who must always clear her throat whenever she begins to walk, and the elderly Jewish rabbi with terrible hearing. Even the Korean student is a stereotype, but it isn't as offensive as it is willfully unapologetic.
Midway through there's a brilliant sequence involving a dentist obsessed with Hebrew writings on the back of a patient's teeth. You'll see. It's one of the funniest couple of minutes in recent cinema.
The award for Best Pop Song Used In A Movie This Year also goes to this film for the inclusion of the Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody To Love". The song is used both diegetically and nondiegetically, and it is more important to the narrative you may initally think. Its inclusion is perfect. I also guarantee that most people will be singing the song aloud as they exit the theater.
Roger Deakins returns as the Coens' cinematographer, and there is one very funny site gag. Larry finishes writing extensive notes on a chalkboard in class (in closeup), and then we cut to the POV of the back of the room and see the entire thirty foot board covered in formulas. How is Larry that smart and how did he make it all the way up there were two thoughts that immediately crossed my mind. Carter Burwell does the score, and his musical notes are a little mystical (the film feels like a suburban fairy tale at times) and sad, and it accompanies Larry perfectly.
There will be many theories and questions about what the prologue has to do with the rest of the film. I have my own theory. The dead come back to haunt the living, and misery loves company. The final two minutes of the film imply that God has seen enough and wants to start over again. A plague be a'coming. He is dissatisfied and it is time to wipe everyone out and begin anew. At least that's one goyum's take on it.
Final Rating: 9/10 |
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