DVD Reviews

A Serious Man - Blu-ray Review

By Jeff Swindoll Feb 18, 2010, 15:27 GMT

Academy Award-winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen return to their comedy roots with this original and darkly humorous story about one ordinary man’s quest to become a serious man. Physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) can’t believe his life: His wife is leaving him for his best friend, his unemployed brother won’t move off the couch, someone is threatening his career, his kids are a mystery and his neighbor is ...more

I’m a pretty serious goy.  When the Coen Brothers latest offering arrived at the office it was delivered by a Korean kid and was accompanied by a white envelope stuffed with one hundred dollar bills.  So I knew I was going to like it.  

In the old country (and entirely in Yiddish), Velvel (Allen Lewis Rickman) has had some trouble on the road during a snowstorm.  He arrives home late to his wife (Yelena Shmulenson) to tell of his troubles, but says that he got help from a friend of hers, Reb Groshkover (Fyvush Finkel).  She says that can’t be because Reb died three years ago and that what Velvel encountered on the road was a dybbuk.  

Just then a knock on the door and Velvel’s explanation that he has invited Reb back to their house to have some soup.  Cut forward to 1967 suburban Minneapolis.  Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a physics professor awaiting word if he is to get tenure. 

His wife Judith (Sari Wagner Lennick) suddenly announces that she wants to get a divorce legally and religiously so that she can marry the oddly accommodating Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed).
 
Larry’s home life is pretty harried with preparation for their son Danny’s (Aaron Wolff) bar mitzvah, their daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) washing her hair, and Larry’s brother Arthur (Richard Kind) sleeping on the couch, draining his cyst, and basically hogging the bathroom so that Sarah can’t wash her hair (he’ll be out in a minute).
 
If this wasn’t enough, Larry is offered a bribe by one of his students, Clive (David Kang), and is torn but the stresses of what’s happening at home have him considering it. 

In seeking guidance, Larry consults three rabbis, junior Rabbi Ginzler (Simon Helberg), his regular Rabbi Nachtner (George Wyner), and he tries to get in to see the wise, reclusive Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandrell) who is lost in his contemplations and only grants entrance to congratulate the bar mitzvah boy.
   
A Serious Man is an odd duck indeed.  The palpable sense of stress and doom almost make it seem a Jewish horror movie.  The pre-movie “cartoon” about an undead Jewish bogeyman in the old country certainly seems a bobbemyseh (old wives tale) that sets the stage for the rest of the movie.
 
The film certainly reminds me of the earlier works of the Coen Brothers than of the latter and that’s a good thing.  It’s quirky and funny, but deals with the darker nature that we certainly encounter on a regular basis.  It’s certainly a tale of Job as God sends all manner of trials to test Professor Gopnik.  He seeks wisdom from three stooges. 

One instructs him to look to the parking lot, the other tells him a tale that at first appears to offer some answer but the wisdom offered is “who knows” (though the little story is hilariously done in Coen style), and the final wise man is too busy in contemplation to offer any advice. 

So our hero flails through his troubles, as we all do, seeking wisdom yet finding only bupkes. 

The film is expertly cast with relative unknown Michael Stuhlbarg becoming a serious man.  Much of the cast is new to me, but some familiar faces pop up (Adam Arkin as an attorney, character actor extraordinaire George Wyner, Yiddish theater and television star Fyvush Finkel, nebbish Richard Kind, and Michael Lerner who is no stranger to the Coens). 

The other standout that had me delighted was Fred Melamed as the concerned James Lipton-voiced Sy.  What a performance.  Impressions are made in every performance with Lennick, Wolff, and McManus as the dysfunctional family all standing out.  We’d say to Gopnik that we hope that his life is improving by the end of the picture, but Job would tell you that the storm clouds are brewing. 

I guess we’ll have to wait for A Serious Man 2: An Even Seriouser Man.  The film is nominated for best picture as well as best screenplay for Joel and Ethan Coen.  

A Serious Man is presented in a fabulous 1080p high definition transfer (1.85:1).  Special features are presented in high definition and include the 17 minute “Becoming Serious” making of, the 14 minute “Creating 1967” about evoking the time period, and the 2 minute “Hebrew and Yiddish for Goys” that helps you with the phrases used in the film.  The disc is also BD-Live enhanced.  

A Serious Man is a seriously black comedy that poses more questions than it answers, but such is life.  Certainly fans of the brothers Coen will find it a delight.  If you don’t get satire or black comedy then you’ll certainly be scratching your head afterwards and thinking this film is fercockt.  If that’s the case then it may take an envelope full of money to convince you but such is life. 

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