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A Serious Man
A friend of mine was asking my how many of the Cohen Brothers films I had seen and as he rattled off the list for me, I realized the only one I hadn't seen was 2009's A Serious Man. bizarre black comedy that is definitely the kind thing you would expect from the Cohens, but it also reminded me of some of Woody Allen's loopier work.
The film stars Michael Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik, a Jewish physics professor who seems to be content in the rut that his life has become until his life begins falling apart personally and professionally, and begins questioning why his life is tumbling and believes he can find some answers in his life as a Jew as to why his wife is leaving him and then the guy she leaves him for dies and Larry has to pay for the funeral, why one of his students has offered him a bribe to give him a higher grade on a final exam, why he has to support his loser brother who is drowning in gambling debt, and anxiety over his son's upcoming bar mitzva.
The Cohens' screenplay seems to be aimed at a very specific demographic. The film actually opens with a scene set during Fiddler on the Roof Russia where a woman is reunited with a relative she thought died three years ago. The scene is performed in Yiddish with subtitles and I'm not exactly sure what it had to do with the rest of the film, unless it was just a demonstration of the strength of faith in the Jewish community, but if the truth be told, it tempted me to turn the film off.
What was interesting was the fact that Larry thought he could find easy answers to his problems discussing them with a Rabbi, but the Rabbi he wants to talk to keeps making himself unavailable. The second Rabbi actually tells Larry bizarre story about a dentist who found carvings in the back of a patient's teeth and I was cracking up waiting to find out what this story had to do with Larry's problems and, imagine my surprise to learn that it had absolutely nothing to do with Larry. I also fell on the floor when Larry learned via telephone that his son had gotten him into some serious debt with the Columbia Record club.
The Coens put a great deal of detail into the look of the 1960's, the period in which the film took place. Stuhlbarg, who you might remember as Samuel Rothstein on Boardwalk Empire is effectively channeling Woody Allen in the starring role and there are also standout performances by Richard Kind as his loser brother and George Wyner as the second Rabbi, Once you get past that pointless opening fantasy scene, this one delivers the nervous laughter intended.
A friend of mine was asking my how many of the Cohen Brothers films I had seen and as he rattled off the list for me, I realized the only one I hadn't seen was 2009's A Serious Man. bizarre black comedy that is definitely the kind thing you would expect from the Cohens, but it also reminded me of some of Woody Allen's loopier work.
The film stars Michael Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik, a Jewish physics professor who seems to be content in the rut that his life has become until his life begins falling apart personally and professionally, and begins questioning why his life is tumbling and believes he can find some answers in his life as a Jew as to why his wife is leaving him and then the guy she leaves him for dies and Larry has to pay for the funeral, why one of his students has offered him a bribe to give him a higher grade on a final exam, why he has to support his loser brother who is drowning in gambling debt, and anxiety over his son's upcoming bar mitzva.
The Cohens' screenplay seems to be aimed at a very specific demographic. The film actually opens with a scene set during Fiddler on the Roof Russia where a woman is reunited with a relative she thought died three years ago. The scene is performed in Yiddish with subtitles and I'm not exactly sure what it had to do with the rest of the film, unless it was just a demonstration of the strength of faith in the Jewish community, but if the truth be told, it tempted me to turn the film off.
What was interesting was the fact that Larry thought he could find easy answers to his problems discussing them with a Rabbi, but the Rabbi he wants to talk to keeps making himself unavailable. The second Rabbi actually tells Larry bizarre story about a dentist who found carvings in the back of a patient's teeth and I was cracking up waiting to find out what this story had to do with Larry's problems and, imagine my surprise to learn that it had absolutely nothing to do with Larry. I also fell on the floor when Larry learned via telephone that his son had gotten him into some serious debt with the Columbia Record club.
The Coens put a great deal of detail into the look of the 1960's, the period in which the film took place. Stuhlbarg, who you might remember as Samuel Rothstein on Boardwalk Empire is effectively channeling Woody Allen in the starring role and there are also standout performances by Richard Kind as his loser brother and George Wyner as the second Rabbi, Once you get past that pointless opening fantasy scene, this one delivers the nervous laughter intended.