A Serious ManHow much humiliation does a man have to endure to prove to God that he is humble, or to make it stop? A Serious Man is a black comedy about Lawrence "Larry" Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a college physics professor, a husband and father of two, a brother, a neighbor, and a Jew in the suburbs of Minnesota, circa 1967. Whatever semblance of serenity and stability that existed in Larry's life is upended piece by piece, as a series of unfortunate events pile on and leave him fumbling for answers. It is as if he were afflicted with a curse that tests his character on nigh biblical levels.
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Most analyses about A Serious Man--written and directed by the Coen brothers--compare Larry's plague of ill fortune with Job's from the Old Testament. Larry is always seeking answers for his constant parade of bad luck, repeating that he hasn't "done anything". He believes that it is unfair for him to suffer, because he considers himself to be a "good" man and undeserving of what he perceives as punishment. Larry is a deeply scientific person, capable of leveraging complex mathematical equations to prove something. (Ironically, moments that show Larry teaching have him using equations to depict hypothetical theories that are uncertain or contradictory.) Larry's guiding thought is that if he leads a good life and keeps his head down, he will not invite trouble; but trouble has a way of finding people whether they've convinced themselves that they are immune or not. A Serious Man begins with a parable that establishes its themes, about an evil spirit called a "dybbuk", which sows its seeds of misfortune by being "invited" in. Larry may have heard a tale like this in his youth; but this only compounds his befuddlement, because he believes that he has made no invitation. Larry's chain of sorrow has every appearance of being imperceptible before the sudden deluge of dire events, despite the criticisms of his wife, Judith (Sari Lennick). Where did it all begin? The first calamity comes when Larry is when Judith blindsides him with her desire for a divorce one evening while he is grading papers, citing that she has developed feelings for an ingratiating and unctuous family friend named Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). Perhaps the catalyst was when he refused to give a South Korean transfer student named Clive (David Kang) a passing grade after he failed the midterm, in spite of his begging and a substantial bribe he later denies he offered. Is his refusal to be "merciful" to Clive what kicks off his bad luck--like he's been hexed? It's even possible that it started when Larry is exposed to an archaic X-ray machine at the doctors; maybe the radiation "invited" something like a dybbuk that threw his "aura" out of whack. Perhaps the most absurd reason might be that his bad luck is due to the behavior of his son, Danny (Aaron Wolff), caught listening to Jefferson Airplane with his transistor radio at Hebrew school while he should be learning the Torah. This is the first scene in A Serious Man following the preamble, and shares some framing elements with it. (Consider how the parable seems to be viewed through a prismatic aperture; afterwards, the camera zooms out of Danny's ear canal, transitioning from myth to reality.)
All of this speculation assumes that Larry is actually cursed; it's equally plausible--if very unfortunate--that things are just going poorly for Larry all of a sudden, without reason. His brother, Arthur (Richard Kind), has been crashing on his couch, working on a "metaculus" instead of finding his own place to live, while using his scientific insight to cheat at games of chance. Larry is mild-mannered to a fault; even though he is shocked by Judith and Sy's affair, he later parrots their justifications for making him a cuckold, because he is afraid of getting angry--he believes that getting angry will only invite more trouble. Like Job, there is always the sense that Larry is being pushed to see how much he can take before cracking under the pressure. Well aware of the comparisons, he tries to consult with the rabbis in his community for answers. Larry is first forced to endure the neophyte Rabbi Scott Ginsler (Simon Helberg), who spends less time listening to Larry's dilemma than offering canned diatribes about "perspective", emphatically and repeatedly using the parking lot outside in is ridiculous examples. When he meets with his senior, Rabbi Nachtner (George Wyner), he is subjected to an irrelevant parable about Hebrew lettering appearing on the teeth of a gentile, which sent his dentist into a tizzy looking for meaning, yet finding none. Nachtner's story depicts him as disinterested in Larry's crisis, or worse dismissive; this is compounded by the subsequent scene where the rabbi delivers a eulogy for Sy, where he describes him in flattering tones as a "serious man", despite being aware of his role in Larry's psychological downturn. Even though Nachtner is overly cryptic and even evasive in his guidance, there is a message for Larry in his lack of one--searching for an answer without knowing all of the "givens" of an equation is akin to setting yourself up for failure. When Larry seeks the counsel of the vaunted Rabbi Marshak, it is as if he was trying to make an appointment with God himself. Larry's urgent pleas to have the very senior rabbi hear his case are reminiscent of Franz Kafka's bureaucratic nightmare parable, "The Trial". If Larry is being tested, he is unsure what part of his being is being scrutinized. Out of spite, frustration, and arousal, he pays a visit to his friendly neighbor, Vivienne Samsky (Amy Landecker), after having spied on her sunbathing without a top from his roof--quite accidentally, surely. Larry's motivations for his visit are transparent, and Vivienne indulges his urge to walk on the wild side only as far as getting him stoned. The bribe which Clive left behind for Larry hangs around his neck like an albatross for most of A Serious Man; despite seeming like the most innocuous of Larry's trials for Larry, it is always tempting him to concede his principles and take the path of least resistance. But if this is the great test for Larry, it raises the bigger question about whether this kind of a test is "fair"--ironically the same argument Clive made about Larry's test about Schrödinger's cat.
Recommended for: Fans of a dry black comedy about a poor soul made into the shuttlecock in a game of badminton between higher powers, reminiscent of ancient tragedies. Similar to other comedies by the Coen brothers, A Serious Man embraces irony in a way that makes every scene depicting Larry's escalating misfortune both poignant and sharply humorous.
All of this speculation assumes that Larry is actually cursed; it's equally plausible--if very unfortunate--that things are just going poorly for Larry all of a sudden, without reason. His brother, Arthur (Richard Kind), has been crashing on his couch, working on a "metaculus" instead of finding his own place to live, while using his scientific insight to cheat at games of chance. Larry is mild-mannered to a fault; even though he is shocked by Judith and Sy's affair, he later parrots their justifications for making him a cuckold, because he is afraid of getting angry--he believes that getting angry will only invite more trouble. Like Job, there is always the sense that Larry is being pushed to see how much he can take before cracking under the pressure. Well aware of the comparisons, he tries to consult with the rabbis in his community for answers. Larry is first forced to endure the neophyte Rabbi Scott Ginsler (Simon Helberg), who spends less time listening to Larry's dilemma than offering canned diatribes about "perspective", emphatically and repeatedly using the parking lot outside in is ridiculous examples. When he meets with his senior, Rabbi Nachtner (George Wyner), he is subjected to an irrelevant parable about Hebrew lettering appearing on the teeth of a gentile, which sent his dentist into a tizzy looking for meaning, yet finding none. Nachtner's story depicts him as disinterested in Larry's crisis, or worse dismissive; this is compounded by the subsequent scene where the rabbi delivers a eulogy for Sy, where he describes him in flattering tones as a "serious man", despite being aware of his role in Larry's psychological downturn. Even though Nachtner is overly cryptic and even evasive in his guidance, there is a message for Larry in his lack of one--searching for an answer without knowing all of the "givens" of an equation is akin to setting yourself up for failure. When Larry seeks the counsel of the vaunted Rabbi Marshak, it is as if he was trying to make an appointment with God himself. Larry's urgent pleas to have the very senior rabbi hear his case are reminiscent of Franz Kafka's bureaucratic nightmare parable, "The Trial". If Larry is being tested, he is unsure what part of his being is being scrutinized. Out of spite, frustration, and arousal, he pays a visit to his friendly neighbor, Vivienne Samsky (Amy Landecker), after having spied on her sunbathing without a top from his roof--quite accidentally, surely. Larry's motivations for his visit are transparent, and Vivienne indulges his urge to walk on the wild side only as far as getting him stoned. The bribe which Clive left behind for Larry hangs around his neck like an albatross for most of A Serious Man; despite seeming like the most innocuous of Larry's trials for Larry, it is always tempting him to concede his principles and take the path of least resistance. But if this is the great test for Larry, it raises the bigger question about whether this kind of a test is "fair"--ironically the same argument Clive made about Larry's test about Schrödinger's cat.
Recommended for: Fans of a dry black comedy about a poor soul made into the shuttlecock in a game of badminton between higher powers, reminiscent of ancient tragedies. Similar to other comedies by the Coen brothers, A Serious Man embraces irony in a way that makes every scene depicting Larry's escalating misfortune both poignant and sharply humorous.