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DokBrowne [ 6.5 ]
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Still processing this one, a couple weeks later...I might echo what Dancing_P said, that it re-asserts many familiar Coen themes and interests but in a stripped-down context free of slapstick, A-list stars, or cartoonish exaggeration. Still, that observation in and of itself does not reflect any quality of the movie, good or bad. And despite everything I've read on the movie so far, I still can't quite pinpoint WHY people love it so much. It's an intriguing motion picture, true. Well-shot, appropriate performances, layered with subtext....but I can't really grasp onto a final reaction. With a few exceptions, its humor is plain, and I just don't understand the point they're trying to make. "Accept the mystery"? Inaction and passivity are sins? Nothing matters? You gotta stick to your ethics even in hard times or else karma will destroy you? For one thing, that list of ideas seems to contrast itself in places, and for another, the ideas themselves aren't clear. If life is pointless and bad shit happens and you must embrace it all with simplicity, why did jeff_v (and the movie) suggest that the "I didn't do anything" mantra is a kiss of death? Is Larry's problem that he whines so much about his problems instead of taking action? Because life is pointless, isn't that what the Coens are saying, you can't know what's gonna happen regardless of your actions, so wouldn't it be more apt for Larry to simply give up and stop complaining, but also not even bother trying to fix his problems? I mean yes he's an overly passive guy, probably, and yes, he does compromise his beliefs in the end, but otherwise the script sells him as a decent, moral, fair, kind, clear-headed person, and he's still treated horribly, and the Coens don't put much, if any, credence into the notion of taking charge of your life in order to improve it, so he every time he gets fucked, Larry should just live with it. Not nut up and be a man, not stop saying "I didn't do anything", but accept that he does nothing and expect nothing in return. Is that kind of the idea?
See, I'm just not sure. I'm fully willing to contemplate whatever the Coens have to offer, but I can't find a comprehensible path here. They've incorporated lots of details large and small that accentuate the themes, but I can't make sense of them all. Even the Jefferson Airplane motif bewilders me - "when the truth is found to be lies/and all the joy within you dies/don't you want somebody to love" - what's that supposed to mean? I get the first part in relation to common Coens tropes, about being disillusioned and realizing what a void life is, but what's up with the love part? I could be wrong but emotional connection seems like the last thing the Coens care about. There are tons of movies made all the time whose bottom line is that we're lonely and love or friendship are our salvation, but the Coens have never bothered with that concept (unless you count the dream sequence that concludes "Raising Arizona"; even their charming rom-com "Intolerable Cruelty" views companionship with relentless cynicism). So does the "somebody to love" line have any relevance in "A Serious Man"? Larry and his wife could scarcely care less for each other, and his interest in the neighbor is purely carnal. We don't see proof of fulfillment through any of the relationships in his life, so is this simply another cynical joke of theirs? As a topic, it's not supported by any of the scenes or events in the movie itself.
There are several different theories about the whole thing, and for that alone I can appreciate the movie's philosophical brain-stroking. It's not just a watch-and-forget slice of entertainment. However I still must hold this and any other film to a standard or coherency. Maybe in the future I'll get it more clearly and repent the ignorance I'm revealing in this review. I hope so, because as compellingly mystifying and artfully crafted as their thesis was this time, I don't think the movie they made transcends its muddled pontificating. It's more like an essay that shows potential and sophistication, but lacks clarity, and isn't very memorable anyway. Say what you want, but "No Country for Old Men", even without Tommy Lee Jones' heady soliloquy at the end, was a riveting, powerful, breathtaking, and unforgettable film experience; "A Serious Man" on the other hand aspires to be as ordinary as possible. Bravo?
I did like the final shot, though. I have no idea why the consensus is so divided on that point - in the context of the movie it makes perfect sense and should not have ended any other way
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jeff_v [ 9.0 ]
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A friend of mine's first reaction was "I think I just saw a great movie." Same here. The Coens have a way of giving you just enough to stimulate your intellect without ever spelling anything out. It's what makes their films so re-watchable.
Hopefully this movie ends the debate as to whether the Coens feel superior to their characters. Of course they do! They are gods, and they put their characters to tests, moral and otherwise to reveal human folly but also what is resilient and fascinating about us.
"I didn't do anything!" is the constant refrain in this movie. (Compare to their previous movie's "What the fuck?" chorus to get an idea of the difference in tone.) The worst sin is doing nothing.
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Dancing_P [ 8.5 ]
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At this point, I am fairly comfortable in saying that the Coen brothers are my favorite filmmakers working today. After that little stray off the road that was The Ladykillers, they've consistently delivered. At first glance, this would seem like a bit of an aside for the Coens: no name actors, a small release, a fairly arcane plot... yet this is perhaps the most concise summation of what the Coens are about to date.
Perhaps the schmuckiest of a long line of Coen shmucks, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a perpetually-dazed Midwestern physics professor who's constantly waiting for tenure. His wife is in the process of leaving him for a recently-widowed family friend, his daughter is saving up for a nose job, his son is a pre-pubescent pothead, he's being bribed by a student to change his failing grade, his brother (Richard Kind) is in heaps of trouble... suffice to say that there isn't much that's going well for Larry and he seems cosmically, karmically incapable of getting unfucked.
Although the mounting and never-ending amount of mishaps suggests a shaggy-dog story a la Burn After Reading, A Serious Man is more in line with the Coens' baldly autobiographical bacchanal, Barton Fink. Although it's structured like one of their farces, it's also a potent observation of Coen-favorite themes like religion and the futility of our everyday actions. The choice to keep the film so consistently low-key and to remove any actor with which the viewer may have a preconcieved image keeps the film mired in its own universe; in other words, it's funny because Larry Gopnik is getting screwed, not Brad Pitt. In what might seem to some as reheating past successes, the Coens have made what's not their funniest, not most satisfying, not their best-written but simply their most concisely Coen-esque film yet.
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| Weighted Rating | : 7.5 |
| No. Ratings | : 5 | |
| No. Reviews | : 3 | |
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