A Serious Man
Coen movies live near that line that separates the unlikeable characters who nonetheless hold your attention and the unlikeable characters who are merely unlikeable. There’s something to be said for realistic portrayals of selfish, unpleasant people — and their tendency to proceed in their selfish unpleasantness unpunished — but “accurate” doesn’t always mean “interesting.”
So it is with A Serious Man, a story that shows some promise initially but never comes together, and ends up feeling flat and sour, like a mean joke that had to be explained. A handful of small moments work, but the movie doesn’t stick with them long enough; it goes right back to sight gags, and to turning a few of the frumpier aspects of suburban/Jewish culture into punchlines, which is cheap and trite.
The accusation is often leveled at the Coens that they’re cruel to their characters and exploit their frailties by mocking them. I’ve always thought this is too facile an explanation; A Serious Man, like Blood Simple and a couple of other Coen offerings, feels more underthought than anything, as if they tired of the idea in the middle of pre-production and didn’t dig into the problems it presented. My evidence for that here is the prologue about the dybbuk, which seems intended to provide an overarching principle that just isn’t borne out by the rest of the material.
A few tweaks here and there, and it could have done something fresh. As it is, the somewhat random collection of motifs is undercooked; the editing is too in love with moments that don’t warrant its focus; Aaron Wolff, who plays Danny Gopnik, is a kid and a newcomer, so it pains me to say it, but he’s bizzaaaaaad.
I count the Coens among my favorite filmmakers, but this isn’t a Best Picture nominee, much less a contender. I suspect that’s a “past masters” nomination, which is fine, but the screenplay nom is mystifying; it’s a second-year-film-school cynical pastichey mess. Skip.
Death Race 46, Sarah 12
Tags: Aaron Wolff movies Oscars 2010 Death Race The Coen Brothers
That’s good to hear. I keep thinking I should watch it but now I will feel free to skip.
Also – I am so glad you are doing this! It’s fascinating!
Boy, did you hit the nail on the head, Sars. I watched this movie last Saturday and came away with the exact same impression. I thought that perhaps my knowledge of Jewish culture interfered with my understanding of this film, but it’s good to know that I’m not the only one who thought this was a pure, unadulterated mess. The prologue seemed to have no connection to the rest of the story, and while I can pick up on people’s comments that the film serves as an allegory to the Book of Job, if that’s the case, it seems like they didn’t tell the whole story. In the end, barring a few bits that brought a smile to my face (and maybe one chuckle), this ranks at the bottom of the Oscar nominees I have seen so far.
Wow, did I see the same movie? I could not disagree more. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I didn’t think Aaron Wolff was bad either. of course I might be just a touch biased because he’s a local boy and a really nice kid.
I’m sure he’s a fine person; his line deliveries are not good.
Thank you for that. Wow, how I hated this film.
To me, the key to the entire movie is in the parable the second rabbit tells Gopnik. What it boils down to – for me anyway – is you shouldn’t sweat the big questions (When will we die, what does it all mean, does life have any meaning, and so on), because whatever is going to happen will happen anyway, whether we worry about it or not, so we might as well just enjoy life as it happens. I don’t think they treated this in a facile way – to me, this was like the Coens were trying to do a Woody Allen film, except unlike his films, the characters here are connected to the world, no matter how insulated their community may be.
I didn’t like it much either — I just wanted to hang in the old rabbi’s office/museum/laboratory for the duration.
I’m not Jewish. I’m not Midwestern. I didn’t grow up in the sixties. But 1) did kids swear like that back then 2) within earshot of their parents 3) and not get punished?