Last night I travelled the 150 mile round trip to see A Serious Man at the Leeds International Film Festival. The screening was held at the Town Hall and was run by a mobile cinema firm called Reels on Wheels (http://www.reelsonwheels.org.uk/ ). The room was very large and decadent but, alas, the screen was not and the room was so big that the sound was lost in it to a degree. However, seeing the movie almost two weeks early (and without 40 minutes of adverts and trailers) made any shortcomings quickly disappear.
I don’t want to recount too much of the plot because the review would then inevitably contain spoilers, not to say that my words below do not- you have been warned!
The movie centres around Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a university physics proffessor in Minneapolis during 1967 and he’s having a rough time of it. Misery after misery is piled upon him (cruel, cruel Coen brothers). His wife wants a divorce- she’s taken up with a family friend, his son is about to be Bar Mitzvahed but is experimenting with pot and has signed up for the Columbia Record Club under his name, he’s up for tenure at the university which has it’s own stresses, he may or may not be involved in an exam grades blackmail scheme, his brother is in a bit of trouble with the police and to top it all off he’s had a prang in his car.  All of these are factors are mostly beyond his control and form the perfect miserable storm, the result of which is he’s financially doomed, depressed and seeking the meaning of life. Plot wise, that’s pretty much the crux of it. How each trial pans out is where the movie and the humour lies.
First thing’s first A Serious Man is seriously funny. It’s a lot funnier than I was expecting. The Coens do a neat line in black humour but this movie isn’t really all that dark but nor is it goofy. It straddles the line between the out-and-out comedy mayhem of Raising Arizona or Burn After Reading and the should-or-shouldn’t-I-laugh bleakness of, say, Fargo. All of the characters are very Coenesque as are all of the situations. If you’re at all familiar with their oeuvre you will know what to expect in terms of tone. The writing is typically brilliant with some scenes containing hilarious overlapping dialogue and repeated phrases (“Out in a minute”). It is unobtrusively shot, that is there are no flashy camera angles, sweeping vistas or fancy-Dan pans, it’s all pretty conservatively done which allows the characters to come to the forefront.
The movie contains a lot of Yiddish. A lot. But happily it is easy to work out what is meant even if, like me, the words are entirely new to you. Sometimes they are explained to a character on screen (really for us I suspect) and sometimes it’s just very obvious what is meant by the context. Anyway the use of language is absolutely not a barried to enjoying and “getting” the movie.
I do have some comments about the movie which could be seen as short comings. Larry’s brother, Arthur (Richard Kind) busily works on a journal he calls “the Mentaculus”. Now my problem with this is that it is never really clear what this is. Two scenes mention the fact that it is a probability map and that Arthur has been successful during card games but beyond that it’s never mentioned. For such a large part of a character’s life it almost seems throw away. Certainly more screen time is spent on the draining of Arthur’s sebacious cyst than on his staggering work of mathematics. He’s a genius with a brilliant mind but this is never pursued.
Much has been said of the opening montage in the Polish shtetl and that it apparenlty makes sense come the end of the movie but I have to say, I am at a loss with this one. It was a funny little scene and I’m glad it’s there but I have no idea what it is there for. I suspect it’s the Coen brothers openly mocking their audience again but perhaps I missed something…
My main bug bear with the movie is the ending. So Larry gets some bad news about his health from his doctor, a tornado is fast approaching and the movie ends. That’s it? Why? What? Am I missing something here? For me the movie went from five stars to four in that one instant. A real shame there was no closure. Did Larry get back with the wife as was hinted at during the Bar Mitzvah? How ill is he? It was like the end of final season of The Sopranos – nothing! Perhaps it had something to do with the movie’s opening quote – “Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you.” Perhaps we, the audience, are just supposed to accept how the movie ends and move on.
The pefrormances are really very good. There are no genuine stars in the movie but lots of faces you will recognise. Obviously the most recognisable of which is Spin City’s Richard Kind but you will also notice Adam Arkin and George Wyner. I particularly enjoyed the very brief and completely unexpected cameos by Michael Lerner (as Larry’s property lawyer) and Steve Park (as Clive’s father) both of whom make their second appearance in a Coen brothers’ movie. Michael Stuhlbard is in pretty much every scene and his performance is, as reported everywhere, tremendous. I’ll be very surprised if we don’t see lot of Mr. Stuhlbarg over the coming years. He plays Larry comedically but without overstepping the mark in to farce. You feel for Larry and empathise with the troubles he is facing. He’s put upon but admirably not down, he continues to function in his life. The other stand out is Aaron Wolff, who plays Larry’s son Danny who also knocks his performance out of the park. Two emerging talents to watch no doubt.
I always try to position a new Coen brothers move in amongst the others to see where it fits in my estimations. For me, A Sersious Man, is not a masterpiece like Fargo, Miller’s Crossing or The Big Lebowski but nor is it disposible like the underrated Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers, it sits somewhere between, perhaps in the top quarter of the table. It is hard writing reviews at the best of times but it is harder still to write them after seeing a film only once which is the case here. The LIFF hand out little scorecards on the way into the movie and collect them on the way out to establish which movie was the best of the festival. I really wanted to give A Serious Man the full five stars but in the end I gave it four primarily due to the unsatisfactory ending. Perhaps it will win anyway- the Coens might have figured this all out with Arthur’s Mentaculus.
5 4 stars

Last night I travelled the 150 mile round trip to see A Serious Man at the Leeds International Film Festival. The screening was held at the Town Hall and was run by a mobile cinema firm called Reels on Wheels. The room was very large and decadent but, alas, the screen was not and the room was so big that the sound was lost in it to a degree. However, seeing the movie almost two weeks early (and without 40 minutes of adverts and trailers) made any shortcomings quickly disappear.

I don’t want to recount too much of the plot because the review would then inevitably contain spoilers, not to say that my words below do not- you have been warned!

Poor, poor Larry!

Poor, poor Larry!

The movie centres around Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a university physics proffessor in Minneapolis during 1967 and he’s having a rough time of it. Misery after misery is piled upon him (cruel, cruel Coen brothers). His wife wants a divorce- she’s taken up with a family friend, his son is about to be Bar Mitzvahed but is experimenting with pot and has signed up for the Columbia Record Club under his name, he’s up for tenure at the university which has it’s own stresses, he may or may not be involved in an exam grades blackmail scheme, his brother is in a bit of trouble with the police and to top it all off he’s had a prang in his car.  All of these are factors are mostly beyond his control and form the perfect miserable storm, the result of which is he’s financially doomed, depressed and seeking the meaning of life. Plot wise, that’s pretty much the crux of it. How each trial pans out is where the movie and the humour lies.

First thing’s first A Serious Man is seriously funny. It’s a lot funnier than I was expecting. The Coens do a neat line in black humour but this movie isn’t really all that dark but nor is it goofy. It straddles the line between the out-and-out comedy mayhem of Raising Arizona or Burn After Reading and the should-or-shouldn’t-I-laugh bleakness of, say, Fargo. All of the characters are very Coenesque as are all of the situations. If you’re at all familiar with their oeuvre you will know what to expect in terms of tone. The writing is typically brilliant with some scenes containing hilarious overlapping dialogue and repeated phrases (“Out in a minute”). It is unobtrusively shot, that is there are no flashy camera angles, sweeping vistas or fancy-Dan pans, it’s all pretty conservatively done which allows the characters to come to the forefront.

The movie contains a lot of Yiddish. A lot. But happily it is easy to work out what is meant even if, like me, the words are entirely new to you. Sometimes they are explained to a character on screen (really for us I suspect) and sometimes it’s just very obvious what is meant by the context. Anyway the use of language is absolutely not a barried to enjoying and “getting” the movie. Either way you can see a handy glossary here.

Were going to be fine.

"We're going to be fine."

I do have some comments about the movie which could be seen as short comings. Larry’s brother, Arthur (Richard Kind) busily works on a journal he calls “the Mentaculus”. Now my problem with this is that it is never really clear what this is. Two scenes mention the fact that it is a probability map and that Arthur has been successful during card games but beyond that it’s never mentioned. For such a large part of a character’s life it almost seems throw away. Certainly more screen time is spent on the draining of Arthur’s sebacious cyst than on his staggering work of mathematics. He’s a genius with a brilliant mind but this is never pursued.

Much has been said of the opening montage in the Polish shtetl and that it apparenlty makes sense come the end of the movie but I have to say, I am at a loss with this one. It was a funny little scene and I’m glad it’s there but I have no idea what it is there for. I suspect it’s the Coen brothers openly mocking their audience again but perhaps I missed something…

My main bug bear with the movie is the ending. So Larry gets some bad news about his health from his doctor, a tornado is fast approaching and the movie ends. That’s it? Why? What? Am I missing something here? For me the movie went from five stars to four in that one instant. A real shame there was no closure. Did Larry get back with the wife as was hinted at during the Bar Mitzvah? How ill is he? It was like the end of final season of The Sopranos – nothing! Perhaps it had something to do with the movie’s opening quote from Rashi- “Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you.” Perhaps we, the audience, are just supposed to accept how the movie ends and move on.

The pefrormances are really very good. There are no genuine stars in the movie but lots of faces you will recognise. Obviously the most recognisable of which is Spin City’s Richard Kind but you will also notice Adam Arkin and George Wyner. I particularly enjoyed the very brief and completely unexpected cameos by Michael Lerner (as Larry’s property lawyer) and Steve Park (as Clive’s father) both of whom make their second appearance in a Coen brothers’ movie and therefore qualify for my Family Tree section. Michael Stuhlbarg is in pretty much every scene and his performance is, as reported everywhere, tremendous. I’ll be very surprised if we don’t see lot of Mr. Stuhlbarg over the coming years. He plays Larry comedically but without overstepping the mark in to farce. You feel for Larry and empathise with the troubles he is facing. He’s put upon but admirably not down, he continues to function in his life. The other stand out is Aaron Wolff, who plays Larry’s son Danny who also knocks his performance out of the park. Two emerging talents to watch no doubt.

Proud parents

Proud parents

I always try to position a new Coen brothers move in amongst the others to see where it fits in my estimations. For me, A Serious Man, is not a masterpiece like Fargo, Miller’s Crossing or The Big Lebowski but nor is it disposible like the underrated Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers, it sits somewhere between, perhaps in the top quarter of the table. It is hard writing reviews at the best of times but it is harder still to write them after seeing a film only once which is the case here. The LIFF hand out little scorecards on the way into the movie and collect them on the way out to establish which movie was the best of the festival. I really wanted to give A Serious Man the full five stars but in the end I gave it four primarily due to the unsatisfactory ending. Perhaps it will win anyway- the Coens might have figured this all out with Arthur’s Mentaculus.

5 4 stars