Review: A Serious Man
by: Peter Marmorek on November 10th, 2009 | 23 Comments »
“The fun of the story for us,” say the Coen Brothers, in their gloss on A Serious Man, “was inventing new ways to torture Larry.” He’s the only nice person in the film, and if torturing nice people is your idea of a good time, this might be the film you’re searching for. Or if you have always wondered what self-hating Jews really look like, here’s a matched set of brothers to demonstrate.
It’s a natural phase to go through as a child, that when your life is miserable, you take out your toys and torture them. But by the time you’re in your fifties, surely it’s time to move on. Much has been made about the similarity of A Serious Man’s setting to the Minnesota world the Coens grew up in. But surely even Minnesota, let alone Hollywood, has therapists that could help? Torturing two-dimensional puppets is no occupation for two grown men, let alone the basis of an entertaining spectator sport.
So what do the Coen brothers hate? They hate all their characters for a start. The Rabbis are ignorant know-nothings, marriage is a farce, the only person who is affectionate to Larry is the Sy Adelman, who’s shtupping Larry’s wife. Larry’s daughter is a an obnoxious teenager who steals his money to save for a nose job; Arthur, his brother is a sponging failure; and Danny, his son, is a perfect example of what really makes the film so vile.
Danny is oblivious to everything going on around him, and smokes a lot of dope to help him stay that way. The running gag (four times: the film runs, you gag) is that whenever something particularly horrible happens to his father, Danny will phone up to request Dad work on the TV antenna so his favourite shows get better reception. Danny is supposedly studying for his Bar Mitzvah, but he listens to Jefferson Airplane instead, and smokes more dope. Terrified of what he doesn’t know, he gets really, really stoned before his big day, goes up to the Torah, and does what everyone hails as a brilliant job. So not only is Danny a farce, but the Bar Mitzvah is a farce: no one even notices he’s incompetent. Then he goes in to see the third rabbi, (the first two have been revealed as racist morons earlier), to receive the Words of Wisdom… and the rabbi mangles a few lines from Jefferson Airplane (Danny corrects him.) Yep, it’s shit all the way down in this film.
The university is a farce, with Larry’s prospective tenure wavering on the basis of anonymous letters about him, and a racist portrayal of a Korean student who both bribes and threatens Larry to get a passing grade. Larry’s neighbours are psychopathic blond deer-hunters who haunt his dreams, and only show any warmth when someone they can despise even more (the Korean student’s father) shows up. The Coens are nothing if not equal opportunity haters.
And boy, do they hate their Jewish characters! The portrayal of Jews would be called anti-semitic if anyone non-jewish had done it. A rabbi tells a long pointless story to everyone who seeks spiritual support, focussing on a Jewish dentist who is working on a non-Jew who somehow has a mysterious message in Hebrew engraved on the inside of his teeth. Puzzled by the lack of conclusion to the story about the dentist, Larry asks, “What happens to the goy?”
The rabbi responds, “Well, who cares?”
Dave Denby nailed it in The New Yorker, ” As a piece of moviemaking craft, A Serious Man is fascinating; in every other way, it’s intolerable.” It is brilliantly filmed, provocatively cut, with a fine soundtrack, Trumanesque sets, and excellent acting throughout. And it is utterly hollow at the core. There is no hope, nothing of value. Characters either know themselves to be living a lie, or falsely believe themselves to be living the truth. At the end, Danny gets through his Bar Mitzvah, and gets the money he’d lost so he can pay off his dealer. Larry gets tenure, sells out to the Korean student so he has money, and it looks like just maybe things are going to be okay. Then Danny is about to get killed by a tornado (because his incompetent teacher can’t get the tornado cellar door open) and Larry has some terrible incurable disease that he has to go see the doctor to find out about. So they’re both going to die. The End.
Laugh? I thought I’d cry.
I like black humour. I love Heller, Vonnegut, Dr. Strangelove. But these work because there’s a tension between characters (Yossarian, Billy Pilgrim, Lionel Mandrake) whom we care about (and who are respected by their creator) and the irrationality of an uncaring world. Real art is created when the artist can show weaknesses and still leave us feeling compassionate towards their subject. As Cohen sings in Anthem, “There is a crack in everything/ that’s how the light gets in.” But if it’s all dark, on either side, why care about the cracks, particularly the wisecracks? They don’t matter. Pynchon memorably wrote in Gravity’s Rainbow, “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.” But to the Coens all answers are wrong, so if you ask anything from life you’re just another fool.
Don’t waste your time: go see a film that raises real questions, not one that’s too afraid of the world to dare admit there are any.
What a discouraging review.
I have yet to see the film (though I intend to, despite Marmorek’s admonition). I’d hoped that the Coen’s sharp cynicism would not win out in “A Serious Man,” as it has in most of their films. Still, even “Burn After Reading,” a film dominated by deeply flawed, self-serving people, seemed to be something of a morality tale, a caution against the sort of bad behavior that we watched onscreen.
But perhaps I’m misreading the Coens, projecting my own creative expectations onto their work? I’ve read many reviews of “A Serious Man,” and, though most reviewers offer raves, even the two-thumbs-up critics highlight the cruel nihilism at the film’s core. Neil Murray, writing in The Onion A.V. Club, states that the film is “anchored to a way of looking at the world that seems to posit a fundamental absence of meaning,” and wonders if the Coens might “honestly believe there’s no point.” If that’s so, it’s more of a case of art imitating life than art informing it. That’s a sad shame.
My review is – I admit – unbalanced, or to put it more kindly, intended to counter balance the raves (85% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.3/10 on IMDB) A Serious Man has received. A “fairer” reviewer might have dwelt on the excellence with which the story is told, and the exemplary cinematic skills manifested throughout.
And yet: Hamlet says the purpose of art is “both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, a ’twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her feature…” So if a mirror shows no virtues at all, why talk about the craft of the frame within which it’s mounted?
I hope you’ll come back here after you’ve seen the film: I’d love to hear what you will have thought of it then.
Thank you,Peter Marmorek.
Though a writer, I hate writng reviews, and yet this film was so,for me, without redeeeming value, I just might have. You saved me the trouble. I completely agree with you.
And while Minnesotans (I live here now though from NYC) say that the film reproduced the look and feel of this particular time and neighborhood, it is a million miles away from the working class city housing projects I grew up in, and once again makes it difficult for me to convince people who don’t know that there indeed were (and still are) working class and poor Jews.
In any case, I recently watched an older film, The Believer, and after that serious grappling with serious themes, this pablum was chokingly undigestible. Cinematic skills do not make a work of art worthy of consideration. There are more than enough of those to go around. I’d rather see a work from a handheld camera in Siberia, than ooh and ah at the work of people who really should know better.
Thanks Peter,
Anya Achtenberg
You neglect to mention in your review the opening scene in the shtetl which sets up the theme of the movie namely that the sins of the fathers are visited upon their sons. Larry is a mensch to whom all manner of terrible things happen that he cannot understand. The Coens may torture him but they clearly love him. The fact that he sits shiva for his wifes lover is so poignant and very funny in a very Jewish way. My reading of the movie is that Danny receives a blessing from the third rabbi in the form of the Jefferson Airplane quote which relieves him of the generational curse. That may be my interpretation. As for all the self hating Jew stuff, why you sound just like Alan Dershowitz.
the sins of the fathers are visited upon their sons I didn’t link the opening scene, but as the Coens didn’t either, I saw no reason to. I’m not convinced that that’s what they’re saying… the dybbuk is ambiguous, and that we are being punished in this life for sins we know nothing about and didn’t do ourselves is neither in my reading of Judaism, nor optimistic.
The Coens may torture him but they clearly love him? If this is love, spare me from it! The one thing they give him is integrity, but even that’s taken away when he raises the student’s mark. He’s utterly passive and abused by everyone as a result. I’m sorry, David, but I really don’t see the love.
And the 3rd rabbi’s “blessing” is significant. He says, “When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joys within you die…” and then he stops. He can go no further. (The actual song says in the next line, “Don’t you want somebody to love?” But for the rabbi there is no love, just a failed and empty world that he holds up to Danny.) And while I certainly read 60s rock lyrics with the same focus that better Jewish boys brought to their reading of Talmud, that the Rabbi fails when he tries to tell Danny the names of the members of the Airplane shows that he doesn’t know the “blessing” he’s trying to give.
(They both omit Spencer Dryden from the members of the group. I have no theories why that is.)
Hey People,
I loved the film; my two sons (34 and 32) loved the film; my wife loved the film – and guess what? We’re all Jewish! It’s so incredibly perfect in its skewering of suburban American Jewish life. Of course the film made me uncomfortable and had me squirming in my seat, but that was the point. If we can’t laugh at ourselves, we’re lost. If you want spirituality, read Buber or Heschel. If you want to laugh at a comic masterpiece, go see this film.
Steve
P.S. The bit about the goy’s teeth is inspired – who but two crazy Jewish brothers could think up such a thing? I hope my own sons do as well.
You certainly have far more people on your side, Steve, than I do on mine. But I stand unbowed.
It was a common refrain from my students all through my days as a teacher, “But sir, it’s just a joke.” It was as though the humour absolved their stories from any racist, sexist, homophobic weight they might carry. Stories carry meaning and as Thomas King says, “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are.” Being funny doesn’t count as some cosmic “Get out of meaning” card.
You say, and I agree with you, “If we can’t laugh at ourselves, we’re lost.” But that’s only one way to be lost, and there are a lot of other ways as well. Only being able to laugh at yourself is another one. And isn’t that what being lost means, that you can’t find any way home? The Coens show a world in which everyone is lost, there’s no way home, (hell, there isn’t any meaningful home)… and I wouldn’t wish such a world on your sons, or anyone’s.
So the Coens have just made equal top picks among The Forward Top Fifty Jews, with this movie mentioned as a major reason: http://www.forward.com/forward-50-2009/#politics
Of course, they did include Bernie Madoff, so not everyone was stellar. Nice to see Ruth Messinger and Jay Michaelson and others who Tikkun readers love and who have written for the magazine.
“So what do the Coen brothers hate? They hate all their characters for a start.”
sounds like a general statement, and fans – even fairweather fans like me – would believe that not to be generally true. Indeed, memorable unpredictability is the principal reason I return sporadically to the Coen well, even after Miller’s Crossing and Barton Fink – dispiritingly bleak movies that at least didn’t pretend to be anything other than serious.
I was thrilled by Blood Simple, their pastiche-y thriller debut, and delighted by their postmodern return to the genre in Fargo. I loved the highlights of Hudsucker Proxy, and found much genial laughter in Raising Arizona. But except for O Brother, Where Art Thou, which got by on a wan charm (and an uplifting soundtrack), there seem always to be sharp shafts of darkness in Coen world … and, just as usually, sharply contrasting brightness, eccentric characters who seem real and even admirable, with brilliantly colorful attributes. And this was true even of No Country For Old Men, which may be the hardest movie ever to win the Oscar for Best Film.
However, I’m digressing, not debating. You are convincing that memorable cuts two ways here, and unpleasant wins in a walk. You are also reinforcing of my reaction to its trailer, which I happened to see last week before the other-polar experience of Jane Campion’s Keats-in-love biopic Bright Star. The trailer was built around the recurring motif of a head being rhythmically smashed sideways into a wall. (I felt I could take the hint.)
I’ve been thinking a lot about this film. I think it holds a mirror up, albeit a “funny mirror,” that shows how, in this case, our Jewish culture can become skewed. I am Jewish, of course, and it is painful to see our worst aspects magnified to the extreme. But the reason it resonates—who hasn’t met a “Sy Adelman” or the other characters in some form or other? We look past it when we meet them in real life, wanting to believe they are completely good, they are cute, because it is painful. As much as we Jews like to think we are unique, I don’t believe we are any different in terms of the numbers of “good” and “bad” people in our culture. Bernard Madoff is a prime example when we look past it. When discovered, he becomes an aberration that many Jews choose to disown.
Yes, if people take this film at face value, it will further antisemitism. I know this is dangerous, and I fear it deep down. I’ve lived in places where I know this movie will confirm all prejudices about Jews.
Yet for Jews, I do think it has value. The film questions who we are, our relationship to God. We have always done this as a people. It is in the Torah. The film tackles serious issues, even if our intellect can’t quite wrap our minds around the questions. It resonates with painful soul-based life experiences that are difficult to articulate. I think the Coen brothers have create a Jewish koan. That’s what makes it so different from other films. I believe it has it’s place as a work to be wrestled with. It stands in the tradition of “God wrestlers,” which is what “Israel” means.
As much as we Jews like to think we are unique, I don’t believe we are any different in terms of the numbers of “good” and “bad” people in our culture.
Absolutely, true. To think otherwise would be racist, and your example of Madoff is proof, were any needed, of the schmucks who are Jewish. My objection to A Serious Man is not that it shows Jews with warts and all, but that it shows Jews as nothing but warts. Where are the good people? Who among us would choose to remain Jewish if the community of which that made us part were as uniformly abhorrent as Larry’s?
I love your issue of our wrestling with God (one of my favourite tropes in Judaism). Like Abraham arguing with God about the number of righteous people needed to save Sodom, I argue with the Coen’s description: if there had been even one rabbi with some sense of spiritual connection to something larger than himself… but a parking lot? meaningless teeth? half-remembered lyrics? Bring on the fire and brimstone, and I’m not turning to look back.
I think the Coen brothers have created a Jewish koan.
Like, what is the sound of no hands clapping?
The rest is silence.
I think you’re making a crucial mistake: we do not know if the tornado is going to kill or harm Danny, and we do not know if Dr. Schapiro is going to diagnose Larry with an incurable disease. Putting aside the dark comedy, our ignorance is the point.
We are introduced to Larry (starting with his behind, by the way, implying that he too is a bit of an ass) lecturing his students on the quantum physical illustration called Schrodinger’s Cat. I hope I’m getting this right, but Schrodinger’s Cat was an exercise to demonstrate uncertainty: a cat is placed in a box with a trigger mechanism that “kills” the cat. But, according to quantum physics, the cat is either dead or in an alternate reality. I really have no idea if this has been “proven” or not but bear with me. The entire film, then, seems to be an expression of the Schrodinger’s cat illustration. The two rivals, Larry and Sy, crash their cars at the same instant (the trigger mechanism). One dies, and the other does not, although the remaining cat’s alternate existence doesn’t seem that great. Another trigger mechanism (either the tornado or the more moralistic changing of Clive’s grade) presents us with another 50/50 shot at death or survival. But we do not know what will happen.
The film, then, is not vacuous or hopeless. The audience gets to use its perception, recalling Larry’s impaired contemplation of his empty ice tea glass, and fill-in the conclusion. Does Larry get tenure only to die? Is Danny, who’s importance is noted by the possessions of Marshak- the bottles with fetuses and the painting of Abraham about to murder Isaac, to die as well? The film ends with the approaching storm, it is up to us to decide whether there is meaning or not.
Hi Jared,
I love your Schrodinger’s issue. The idea (which is proven, as much as anything in quantum physics is) is that the cat’s state while in the box cannot be described as either alive or dead, but only described by a probability curve that defines the cat as half alive and half dead. That function collapses when we open the box and look and see either a 100% alive cat, or a 100% dead cat. (For those who haven’t encountered this before, this is a “gedanken” (thought) experiment, and no cats were harmed in the conceiving of it.) Schrodinger’s wave equations of electron motion are used in physics pretty universally, for a simple reason: they work.
I think your point that Larry and Sy’s crashes, Larry’s medical call-in, and Danny’s onrushing tornado are meant to illustrate Schrodinger’s cat is both fair and insightful. And that would explain why the film ended at the point it does, which had seemed peculiar at the time, but now becomes quite logical: we are about to open the box.
However, I suspect Larry at any rate has far less than the cat’s 50-50 chance: my doctor only calls me in to discuss results of tests when the news is not good, and I suspect most other doctors are the same. Given the Coens’ expressed delight in torturing Larry, I wouldn’t be betting on the diagnosis being happy.
I too noticed Rembrandt’s painting of Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac, that pivotal incident that Weisel calls “a reproach against God and His injustice to man”. And perhaps Danny will be saved. But if Weisel can reproach God for the unfairness of the test, so I can reproach the Coens. If our universe were as hostile as the one they depict, I’d be “on the side of snake-eyes tossed against the side of heaven”, as Leonard Cohen puts it.
So where am I left? Perhaps Danny will get taken off to Oz by the tornado and not killed. Perhaps Larry will have good news waiting. You are right that the ending contains a more complex and interesting ambiguity, foreshadowed by the 50% opacity of S’s cat. It’s an insightful and valid point. But the people in the film are still universally repellant, and as a depiction of a world, I still reject it.
We tell stories to make sense of our world and to give us a way to integrate our experiences in meaning. That is true for all of us, I believe, and the stories that call out to many of us become religion. So my ultimate objection to this film is that the story it tells, of a world in which we are punished for the acts of unknown ancestors, a world filled with people who will betray and lie to us, is not a world that gives me any reason to choose life. And that is what I need my stories to do.
I liked your review and largely agree with it. To me this wasn’t so much a film as a lot of high-brow concepts strung together using rather dull and unsympathetic characters. Richard Kind’s Arthur was the only character that interested me, but he was not the focus of the film. The others reminded me of standard 60’s stock characters through a Jewish filter. The kid sneaking rock n’ roll into class while dodging bullies (Growing Pains anyone), the earnest but failing father, the sexy neighbor lady, etc. I can see why the critics love it and why it will be the subject of many papers in film school for years to come, but it bored me and clearly upset the audience at the end. There were boos and even hisses! I never hear hisses in movie theaters.
I love the Coens, but there was a problem with this one. It was like a high-budget home movie. Disjointed scenes with unappealing people doing nothing much. In other words, boring.
If. you like Woody Allen, you have to at least identify a little with this movie. Totally existentiaI, why do bad things happen to good people, the answer is, who knows? There’s no reason. I don’t believe it makes fun only of Judaism, but anyone who thinks they can answer these questions. Certainly the great rabbis can’t. Of course the scene with the young rabbi is fabulous. For real farce, just listen to his answer for the meaning of life, “just look in the parking lot.” There is no rhyme or reason, yet man needs to make sense of the universe, hence, religion. This is a wonderful and funny movie, and if I were still teaching literature, this would be my example of existentialism.
Well, I guess I differ from you in believing that there are wise teachers who can give us insight into how to live our lives.
And the film didn’t strike me as existential (I’ve taught a few courses on it, too). Existentialism says that “the individual solely has the responsibilities of giving his own life meaning and living that life passionately and sincerely in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions.” But I don’t see any meaning possible in the absurdity of life as it’s presented in this film. It might well serve as an example of Nihilism.
You elide smoothly from” who knows?” why bad things happen to good people to “There’s no reason”. Be careful: those are two very different positions.
I think of Viktor Frankl, the existentialist author of “Man’s Search for Meaning” creating meaning out of his experience in Auschwitz. That is what existentialism holds a possibility… not the Coen’s kind of flatulent despair.
Don’t sell your own life so short.
I disagree strongly with the initial review. I think this was a very good film, and was not anti-Jewish or that it made us all — Jews — look like fools.
After reading reviews before seeing the film, I was surprised that the film was actually pretty respectful of all things Jewish. There was a reverance for ritual and practice even though the individual Jews were flawed. But aren’t we all flawed? That is one reason I find it hard to believe that this movie was racist when it ridiculed the foibiles of different cultures.
Though the rabbis were played for laughs — on my second viewing I had to agree they were buffoons — their actual advice was straight from Jewish tradition — and religious tradition generally.
What did you expect, that these rabbis would have the meaning of life? The Holy Grail? No way. Religion is a coping mechanism, to help us get through difficult times and to build a structure and community to hold us up. What answer could the rabbis have given to make them seem wise? Nothing could explain Larry’s problems.
The first rabbi suggests viewing things differently to live with them. Isn’t this classically Jewish? We are tought to be mindful, to live in the holiness of the moment, and to not overanalyze. Maybe this is insufficient, but it is what religion tells us. We can not know everything, we have to search for a way to see things that include enjoyment and make sense to us.
The second rabbi takes this to the extreme. He says there is no answer, so get on with your life. You’ll be better off if you don’t worry so much, or think you’re missing something. Your not missing anything. (The comment about who cares what happens to the goy, is not racist, it’s just that its totally besides the point).
The third rabbi says that life is hard and disappointing so just be a good person. Isn’t this a personal tikkun olam? You can only control what you do, not what is done in the larger world. Take stock of your own character and actions. Yes, it was delivered in a comical way, but it is a Jewish concept. Don’t wait for some reward, or until you understand what is going on to do something, just do it: do good.
Two more things:
– A Serious Man is not a good thing to be. Abelman is praised as a serious man, and he’s a real nasty shmuck. Gopnik says he is trying to be a serious man, and the rabbis tell him not to waste his time. But no one tells him not to be Jewish. Being Jewish isn’t just about being serious as we’re often taught when young: especially in the time frame of the film.
– There is an especially interesting visual that may be less than what I read into it, but I liked it. When Danny is given the kiddush cup as a gift from the congregation, he grabs it and holds onto it for dear life. He takes it with him to the rabbi’s study. When the rabbi gives him back his transistor he takes it with his other hand and holds it against the kiddush cup like a lulav and etrog held together. I think it is a great image of combining the traditional with the modern, which I see as the message of the film. We can have, and need, both and that is good as long as we don’t overdo it either way. They are both part of what we need to continue.
One last thing — I could keep going — I also liked that neither the teacher nor the rabbi stole Danny’s $20. That would have been consistent if the film was simply a joke, but the Coen’s didn’t take a cheap shot in this instance, nor would it be correct to see the film overall as a cheap shot.
Go see it again!
I commented here not long after the review was initially posted, but at that time I had not seen “A Serious Man.” Having finally had an opportunity to watch the film, I revisited Peter Marmorek’s original review and the above comments. My read of the Coen’s latest is most closely aligned with that of Don in Detroit. It isn’t an easy film, and none of the characters are without their serious flaws – Gopnik, after all, is a doormat, apparently confusing “going along to get along” for lovingkindness – but it isn’t nihilistic. In fact, I think it’s a honest, even optimistic update on the Job story. As Albert Camus famously quipped, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Also, Don in Detroit’s point about the marrying of the traditional world view to the modern is excellent. I felt that Rabbi Marshak’s quoting of Jefferson Airplane was a clear nod in this direction.
Hi HUngry Hyaena,
These automatic updates are so good…I’d never check back without them.
, I think it’s a honest, even optimistic update on the Job story.
Optimistic? OPTIMISTIC? Job gets a replacement wife, replacement kids, etc, (as though that makes it all okay) but Gopnik gets a doctor’s call too serious too discuss by phone, and his son gets a tornado heading towards him. Which part of this is optimistic?
Don in Detroit’s point about the marrying of the traditional world view to the modern is excellent. I felt that Rabbi Marshak’s quoting of Jefferson Airplane was a clear nod in this direction. Don also says the rabbis are buffoons, HH, and I’d argue that the fact that he can’t remember the words or the members of the group suggests a more superficial scholarship than I associate with rabbis, or Airplane fans (I first saw them in ‘65 [grin])
Glad you liked the film.
HI, Peter.
Fair enough.
In all of their films, the Coen brothers complicate, poke fun of, and even tear at their characters. Even their few “true” heroes, such as Marge Gunderson in “Fargo,” are comic characters, awkward at their best and tragically flawed at their worst. That the three rabbis were judged by some viewers to be buffoons in “A Serious Man,” then, doesn’t surprise me. Perhaps that’s what the Coens intended? That said, I felt that only the second rabbi – the one with the story about the goy’s teeth – was failing both at empathy and teaching (though his character and story were an important detail of the Job update). The young, junior rabbi who enthusiastically discussed “the parking lot” failed to connect to Gopnik, but his assertions were not false. He was simply too naive to have learned how to communicate such mystical truths, especially to a congregant in pain, likely not in the proper place for mystical levity about light reflecting off of asphalt!
Also, the optimism I mention may, I admit, be largely my own. (It could be a glass half full or half empty issue.) But I also feel that Danny Gopnik, the bar mitzvah, is a reason for hope. Something seems to happen to him in his encounter with Rabbi Marshak. Even his earlier struggle through a pot haze to successfully (and rather impressively, compared to most bar or bat mitzvahs) chant his Torah portion suggests a “coming through” or an “opening to.” His clutching the kiddush cup in one hand, the Walkman in the other, and then bringing them together is a loaded image, one that Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Reform Jews all embrace (albeit in their varied ways).
Sure, not long thereafter, Danny might die in a tornado…but G-d’s in that, too, just like It’s in the parking lot. It’s a dark, uncertain laugh (like so many in the film)…but it might not be a laugh at all. After all, we don’t know whether or not Schrodinger’s cat is alive or dead.
Still, I have a feeling that, had I watched the film on a different day, I might well have taken away the same read that you did. The Coens flavor all of their art with a cynicism and occasional nastiness that I just as often bemoan.
Thanks for following up!
Hello – I am a non-Jew (could you guess), but I found the movie eye-opening and enriching and in the end charmingly autobiographical. For one reason, that it shows Jewish society not as a bunch of cliquey rich people (no offence, just the stereotype that sometimes exists), but these Minnesotans are people struggling with their life (believe-it-or-not, a decent eye-opener).
I think people who never grew up with Jewish culture in its many forms find Jewish people’s family lives fascinating, partly because Jews are seen as being successful, and coming from calamitous history and repeatedly having the character to succeed in society. I thought the Abraham and Isaac allusion (not just in the painting by Rembrandt) was effective in breaking open this opacity. breaking it open to reveal the difficult and confusing expectations, and certain perils that can exist in Jewish-American life. of what is clearly an adaptation of the Coen brothers childhoods. It is not a self-loathing critique of ALL Jewish Americans. Just as ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’, ‘Bend it Like Beckham’, and the harsher more critical ‘East is East’ or ‘Brick Lane’ should not be read as promoting a stereotypical view of these ethnic groups.
And quite removed from the disjointed bar mitzvah, the storm coming at the end was a perfect harbinger of the son’s entry into the ritual of Jewish life, which the film portrayed as muddling on through the demands of ancient customs and modern problems. The Korean student exposed how things often are, it’s not an attack on equal opportunities or minorities. This specifically does was Hamlet quote suggests. It puts up a mirror to show the reality and not the stereotypical view of non-Chrsitian groups in the myth of America’s world-class ‘melting pot’ producing all the diversity and success. The shadow of it is this small town dysphoria and dysfunctioanlity which this movie proudly accepts. That to me IS its art. I felt sorry for the tortured voodoo doll that was Larry..a post-modern feature of the film is this anti-hero and victim.
I gave it 6/10 because it was slightly prolonged in parts.
PS. To ruin my barely existent rhythm I’d also like to say: Sy Ableman was a monster on an almost ‘biblical’ scale. I didn’t like him much