A Serious Man

(some spoilers within)

People of faith, if they're honest with themselves, struggle more than once with the tenets to which they're bound. The central problem, I believe, is this notion of Rationality. Believing in what is not seen is simultaneously the very essence for the faithful and the fairy tale for the pagan. An empiricist needs hard data, evidence to back up what they consider to be extraordinary claims. It's how we're wired; our terrestrial brains cannot reconcile the mystery epoused by the Bible, Torah, Koran.....Some of us give over to the call of God. Some of us pray prayers; others follow rituals. Others can't wrap their thoughts around the idea that something beyond the confines of our universe might be out there. The rational is what keeps many away from places of worship, from worship itself. If something doesn't seem fair, if ills in society go unpunished, if something doesn't come down from Heaven and smack the individual across the head, then of course it can't exist. But what of the devout one who tries to be that so-called "good person", allegedly doing all the "right things" whose faith is rewarded with hardship and strife?

Larry Gopnik is such a soul, our case study in Joel and Ethan Coen's latest, A SERIOUS MAN. As portrayed by Michael Stuhlbarg, Larry is a midwestern late 1960s version of many martyrs we've seen in literature, not the least of which is Job. Like that OT character, Gopnik finds his life seemingly to completely unravel: wife wants divorce (and to be with his best friend), job future uncertain, hostile and unpredictable neighbors, apathetic children, schlubby brother, the list goes on. How about those pesky folks at the Columbia Music House? They keep calling Larry at work, hounding him about non-remmittance for those Santana and CCR long-players. He didn't even ask for them, but Columbia sent 'em anyway. Many of us have been there, too! Fact is, Larry didn't ask for any of this, this tsuris. This stripping away of his supposed contentment. How did it happen? Is he cursed (ref. the film's prologue, a curious fable spoken in Yiddish)? 

Maybe he just wasn't paying attention. Perhaps his choices weren't the right ones. Maybe they weren't God's Will. Ask any two believers about this controversial topic and you'll get a litany of contradiction. What is the will of God, or G-d? Who is to define the will of God? Larry seeks counsel from various rabbis. Instead, he gets odd stories about Gentile teeth and ersatz Big Bang Theories about parking lots. When he tries to get a meeting with the elder rabbi, one reputed to have a wellspring of wisdom on life and faith, he's told the man is too busy. Not with clients, but with Thought. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise; when we finally hear the rabbi speak, he quotes Jefferson Airplane lyrics, following with a hollow advisement to "be a good boy" to Larry's son Danny after his bar mitzvah. Is this what the Coens think about matters of faith? Is that scene their raspberry to the pursuit of a life devoted to fervency to Yahweh? 

The signals are mixed in A SERIOUS MAN. Larry Gopnik is a science teacher, daily scribbling complex mathematical formulas on the chalkboard, using them to explain physics. Math is tangible. When he tries to convey the science to his students with analogies, he fumbles. His brother, Arthur, meanwhile has composed a book of his own theorems and proofs, a bafflingly complicated series of summations that appear to be key in explaining the universe. Maybe not? Larry examines, in the bleak fallout of his shattered world, how the logical and the mystical co-exist. The answers don't come consistently or easily. A terrestrial kop can't reason it. Perhaps the mind is given too much credit. With their typically oblique sense of humor, the Coens use marijuana as a major subplot/catalyst throughout. Is this the vehicle through which God is reached? Where the answers come from? I also wonder about the school bully, the one Danny owes $20 to, his supplier. Why is it that when the bully sees Danny get off the school bus, he can never catch him? That $20 is pretty important, at least until a tornado arrives, but I digress... 

A SERIOUS MAN is a highly personal, often harrowing look at the plight of a decent, if a bit ineffectual, family man who pursues his religion after his domesticity and work life seem to collapse. Again, I say seem because one of the Coens' themes this time is just what it is that constitutes stability. Maybe it all has to burn down before Life really begins? Perhaps hardship is a cleansing, a storehouse clearing? Maybe it's all just random, maybe "my karma ran over your dogma"? Lots to ponder. "Embrace the mystery" someone advises. Trying to understand it, especially with our finite minds, is often fruitless. I'm not sure if the Coen brothers are embracing, discarding, or acknowledging faith while holding their noses. It's very personal, and the conclusions you draw from this story will largely be shaped by whether you think a cry out to God is something that is heard or merely cried into a vacuum. 

 The movie, I must acknowledge again, is also quite hilarious. This is a true cringefest; we wince while while laugh much of the time. I'll bet this film is scarier than SAW VI. My favorite scenes involve the first rabbi consult with a junior authority (his expressions are priceless), Danny's impairment during his bar mitzvah, and just about every sequence with Sy Abelman, Larry's best friend who makes off with his wife. Sy speaks like one of those therapists whose voice sounds like those yesteryear smooth FM DJs. He reassures you while he ruins your life. That schnook not only disrupts Larry's married life, but also sends damning anonymous letters to the tenure committee at his school. But God's got it in for him, too. Or does he? Is Sy just an embodiment of Larry's basest impulses? I see I've posed more questions than answers. So goes this movie. 

The actors are all perfect. Most were unfamiliar to me, save Richard Kind as Arthur, the sickly, nebbishy brother who carts around a pump that suctions a neck wound, Adam Arkin as an attorney, and George Wyner (fine character actor) as rabbi #2. Michael Lerner also has an amusing cameo. Everyone else seemed to be selected because they were just right, not because they were names. That is how I would cast films if I were a director. You fashion your actors around the script, not vice-versa. The Coens continue to devise unique entertainments, challenging treatises all their own. They dazzle again with their directorial wizardry and drenched in acid writing. What an audacious film. Who else would've/could've made this? Woody Allen? Maybe, if he flexed himself a bit. It seems designed to infuriate viewers, and it did that to a few of my fellow theater goers, though it also delighted several more. Even if this film is flawed (it is), perhaps seems a bit muddled, tends to drive the viewer a little mad, does not quite approach the poetry of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (not much does), it is still worth going out of your way to see (I did).