Seriously? Coen Brothers' Newest Film is Unrelenting

'A Serious Man'

Review: 4.5/5

"I'm not an evil man!" Larry Gopnik screams in his stuffy, collegiate office, and with legitimate reason. He's been the unfortunate victim of unmotivated divorce, a possible bribery scandal, a car accident, and anonymous letters that denigrate him and his chances for tenure. His neighbors hate him. A naked woman visible from Gopnik's house roof distracts him infinitely. He's forced to move out of his own home and into a cheap motel with his brother in law, Arthur, whose brilliance manifests in very unfortunate ways. His son steals money for pot. His daughter does the same for a nose job. And on top of that, the rabbis he visits offer, essentially, superficial advice that amounts to more and more questioning. It's an exhausting decathlon that Gopnik takes valiantly in stride, even though all signs point to an eventual self-implosion. He's a 21st century hero who battles an intangible enemy without any apparent weaknesses.

"Many people lose track of Hashem," says the unusually young rabbi Gopnik visits first, offering him no help in his existential struggle that, at this point, is only beginning to mount. Frustrated, Gopnik storms out of the rabbi's office, and into his own, where a phone conversation suggests that by doing nothing, one is subject to torment. Gopnik, who teaches physics at the collegiate level, finds himself at odds with these unexplainable phenomena. Mathematics can answer everything, can't it? This is a question the Coen's posit, but that they do not explicitly answer, out of respect for the spectator's intelligence. After all, they've given the audience plenty of signs that suggest various possible solutions to all of Gopnik's unwarranted problems. An opening prologue offers more of a clear answer, but I feel there is much more to it than is initially presented. To avoid spoiling the jarring adventure for readers, I'll refrain from a gratuitous discussion of the film's possible meanings.

Suffice it to say that the film, which is shot with a kind of continuously dynamic framing that adds a certain gravitas to the seemingly insignificant setbacks, has a strong element of macabre that is emphasized with the Coen's use of an oddly thunderous score that builds gently until the film's final, disturbing frame.