A Serious Man Review

The first thing that strikes you about A Serious Man is a distinct lack of George Clooney. Or Steve Buscemi. Or Frances McDormand. The brothers Coen have eschewed their roster of regulars and cast an ensemble of relatively unknown thesps in A Serious Man, an awkward yet very likeable comedy drama.

The film begins with a brief prologue set several generations before the main plot in a snowy village where an unassuming chap may or may not have invited a demon into his house. The Coens have invented their own Jewish folk tale, filmed entirely in Yiddish that sets the tone of ambiguity and bafflement that will entail for the next 100 minutes.

We’re then transported to a Jewish community in the American Midwest, 1967 and the classroom of Danny Gopnik (Aaron Wolff), which we enter via Danny’s ear canal which the camera slowly pulls out of to the sound of Jefferson Airplane (whose music features heavily in the film). Danny’s problem is his struggle to pay back his dope-dealing classmate whilst learning the Torah for his upcoming bar mitzvah. His academic dad, Larry Gopnik (an excellent Michael Stuhlbarg) however, has much bigger problems which seem to multiply every minute. His wife Judith (Sari Lennick) announces she’s leaving him for local bigwig Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), his odd brother Arthur is sleeping on his couch and a student is attempting to both bribe and blackmail him. Things escalate from there.

In an effort to combat his midlife crisis, Gopnik visits three rabbis in search of advice and generally finds none. Similarly, the film offers little in the way of answers or meaning as we are left to make our own sense of its narrative. If you like closure and conclusions, you may not enjoy A Serious Man (its ending in particular throws a rather unexpected curveball). This is a matter of personal taste however, and I rather enjoyed a break from being spoon-fed bite-sized simplistic fodder. I was reminded of Andy Kauffman’s ‘character’ in Adaptation, who is struggling to write a script about real people who go through life without easy conclusions: A Serious Man is such a script. The interaction between Larry and Arthur too, reminded me of the Kauffman twins’ two-sides-of-the-same-coin relationship.

The cast is uniformly excellent, with Fred Melamed’s Sy being a stand-out, though the Coens have given him a real gift of a character to work with. Sy is sleazy yet charismatic, all bear-hugs and bonhomie whilst openly having an affair. Aaron Wolff also charms while Michael Stuhlbarg holds the whole shebang together with an assured performance. The production design is also highly commendable, effortlessly transporting us to 60s Midwest America in every minute detail.

A Serious Man may not be the Coen brothers’ most accessible film (the press notes came with a Yiddish glossary), but beneath its composed exterior is a quagmire of existential crisis and near Shakespearean personal tragedy. There are also plenty laughs to be had too though, which leaves us with a satisfying banquet of a film with plenty to enjoy and plenty to chew over.