Salt Lake Tribune Review
In the rogues' gallery of characters the Coen brothers have created, Larry Gopnik may not stand out as the funniest or most dynamic -- but in some ways, he's one of their finest.
Short, nearsighted, nervous and filled with self-doubt, Larry is an unlikely but fascinating character, and his plight makes the offbeat comedy-tragedy of "A Serious Man" one of the Coens' best and in some ways most personal movies.
Larry (played by
Michael Stuhlbarg) is a physics professor in a Midwestern university in the mid-1960s, living in St. Louis Park, a predominantly Jewish suburb of Minneapolis. (The Coens also grew up there, and their dad was an economics professor at the University of Minnesota.) Life seems to be going well for Larry, except for his erratic brother Arthur (
Richard Kind) sleeping on the couch.
Larry is soon buffeted with crises. His application for tenure has hit a mysterious snag. His wife, Judith (
Sari Lennick), asks for a divorce so she can marry a family friend, Sy Ableman (
Fred Melamed). A student (David Kang) offers him a bribe to change his failing grade. His daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) wants a nose job. And his son Danny (
Aaron Wolff) is showing no interest in studying for his upcoming bar mitzvah.
Then, when he's up on the roof fixing the TV antenna (because Danny can't watch "F Troop"), Larry sees his neighbor, Mrs. Samsky (Amy Landecker), sunbathing in her backyard -- completely nude.
Troubled by what's happening in his life, Larry seeks spiritual guidance. Alas, his rabbis can offer nothing but dim platitudes -- or, in the case of the senior rabbi, unavailable to speak to Larry.
The Coen brothers -- Joel and Ethan are credited as co-directors, co-producers, co-writers and (under the name Roderick Jaynes) co-editors -- probably have never made a more personal film. Though the characters are not directly based on the Coens' relatives, the Coens morph the details of their childhoods into a darkly comic and oddly moving story of a man trying to hold his life together when it's all flying apart. They introduce absurdist comedy into an essentially tragic story, not to generate laughs but to play up the cruel randomness of Larry's fate.
"A Serious Man" is blessed with a solid cast, most of them unfamiliar to most viewers. (Kind, whose nasal voice and large bearing have graced many sitcoms, is the most recognizable face here.) Carrying the weight of the movie is Stuhlbarg, a New York stage actor and Tony nominee (for
Martin McDonagh's "The Pillowman" in 2005) in his first leading film role. Stuhlbarg's subtle movements and yearning eyes capture the desperation of Larry's efforts to stay in control of uncontrollable situations, to be a calm center of the turbulent cyclone of what he mistakenly thought was an ordinary life.
-- Sean P. Means
Best Film of 2009!
Submitted by: brook e.
The. Best. Film. Of. The. Year. Period. The Coens are geniuses and their films are not to be missed by anyone who loves cinema. I've already seen this film thrice, and I will see it many more times, and it has been in my thoughts for weeks. Michael Stuhlbarg deserves an Oscar nom but probably won't get one because he's relatively unknown. His character, the title character, Larry Gopnik, is an everyman in a 1960's-Jefferson Airplane-Jewish-midwestern milieu whose life is coming apart at the seams during a powerful midlife crisis involving everyone around him. Every scene is perfected by the Coens. Each segment and each shot works beautifully. The supporting performances are memorable and inspired. The look of the film, its production design, costumes, set design and cinematography, is truly amazing. There are several undeniably memorable scenes in this film. See it immediately! Then see it again to absorb all of the details you will miss due to how much brilliance there is to take in. Mainstream viewers will have their usual problems and issues with this film (they always do with films made by geniuses), but cinephiles and cineastes will go bonkers for it. This film IS cinema. Seriously, man.
"Mere surmise, sir."
A Serious Movie
Submitted by: Digital Bath
I'll get straight to the point. I loved this movie. It rings so true to real life in so many ways. It's totally jewish-centric, but that has little to do with what this movie is all about, which is to live your life the way you want to because there's too much uncertainty and every decision made spawns new choices that weren't there before.
I really loved the oldest Rabbi, who demonstrates that true wisdom shouldn't be sought or dispensed frivolously, and can really only be shared with those who will benefit from hearing it.
Until I saw A Serious Man, the best film I'd seen so far this year was Limits of Control by Jim Jarmusch. Not sure if this will score the Coen brothers another Oscar, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a nomination or two.
The rundown: A professor (
Michael Stuhlbarg) suffers a storm of problems in the Coen brothers' new gem, a darkly offbeat comedy set in the turbulent 1960s. 105 minutes. (SPM)
Synopsis: The story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous acquaintances, Sy Ableman, who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry. Larry's unemployable brother Arthur is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job. While his wife and Sy Ableman blithely make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry's chances for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person - a mensch - a serious man?
Funny how comedy (like food - and a lot of other stuff) is purely a matter of taste. For me, this movie was torture almost from the onset. I laughed (painfully) a couple of times and choked back flight impulse the rest. Actually i was with someone who didn't want to leave when i suggested it about 20 min in. We both regretted seeing the credits roll. Like "The Man Who Wasn't There" - this movie was nasty, mean, and very, very unfunny. For haters only. :) [ Report Abuse ]