A Serious Man

This one was strange even by Coen brother standards. And you know, I didn't get it. Like at all. Which doesn't really happen to me often. I don't know. I watched it with a couple friends of mine, both just as "movie snobish" as I am, and none of us got it. and we're all pros at turning nothing, or next to nothing, into something. And we didn't get it.

Let's start with what I do know. Michael Stuhlbarg, who's resume includes a couple random TV episodes and a few movies I haven't heard of, is very good. Even though I'm not sure what he's good at. He plays a Jewish physics professor at some very small, almost community seeming, college. And I think he might be brilliant at it. But there's very little talk of that. He seems like a good guy I suppose. No terribly obvious flaws. But his life seems to be somehow spiraling out of control. His wife wants a divorce, and then wants to immediately marry a family friend, even though she insists that there has been no infidelity. And he believes her completely and steadfastly which I find strange. Then one of his students, unhappy with a failing grade, tries to bribe him. One of his next door neighbor's keeps mowing some of his grass, insisting that the property line is further towards Stuhlbarg's house than Stuhlbarg thinks it is. And his other next door neighbor, a cougar by all accounts, sunbathes naked in her back yard. His wife's "fiance", isn't that weird to say, then dies in a car accident and he's stuck paying for it. All the while, he keeps trying to see different rabbi's to get advice. A lot of other weird and incongruous happens too, but it would take several more paragraphs to aptly describe it all. It's just all really strange. I don't know. I don't like this feeling. I guess this is how regular people feel when the come out of "deep" movies.

I really think that everything has meaning. Especially Coen brothers movies. But I can't siphon meaning out of any of this. It all just seemed like it had meaning, I just couldn't glean what that meaning was. I can't even really come close. Some parts of me want to come to the conclusion that the movie is about meaninglessness. But I hate stuff like that. The point should never be that there is no point. That's just really stupid. That doesn't make a statement. That doesn't say anything. Except for saying that you're an ass for trying to say that everything is meaningless. I like the Coen brothers too much to think that they played that card. I mean I really like the Coen brothers. Burn After Reading, No Country for Old Men, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, all great stuff. I've never seen Fargo, but it comes highly recommended. By everyone. So I don't think they did that. The "Life is Meaningless" card is so 1960s, anarchy, apathy art. And that stuff is lame.

This movie's shot really, really well though. One of my friends, who's a photographer, remarked that every single frame of every single scene in this movie would be a great photograph. And he's really right. It's one of the prettiest Coen movies to date. They do a great job of framing closeup shots, and they're lighting is always great.

I think I liked this movie. I wanted to like it. I'm a sucker for Academy Award nominations and this one's up for Best Picture and Original Screenplay. And I don't really understand those nominations actually. The story is too ambiguous to be the Best Screenplay of the year and I don't think it stands a chance up against Up in the Air, The Hurt Locker, and Avatar (which I really, really hope doesn't win), among others, for Best Picture. I think the Academy likes the Coen's just as much as I do and so they give them courtesy noms. Which I'm OK with I suppose. This movie really just baffled me. Every component, good and bad, just didn't add up to anything that I could figure out. I just didn't get it.

(Footnote: I'm going to do this one as I rewatch it. One thing we all picked up on right away has to do with the student who's unhappy with his grade. One of his complaints is that he understands the anecdotes, but that he doesn't understand the math involved with the physics. This is almost the same exchange that Stuhlbarg has with one of the rabbis later on in the movie. Stuhlbarg say's to his complaining student that it's the math that matters, and that the anecdote's are just that, stories, fables, they don't really matter. One of the rabbis gives a similar answer to Stuhlbarg's questions about why all of these things are happening to him, the rabbi starts telling this long story that ends up being completely meaningless. The rabbi says, "We all want answers, but Hashem (God) doesn't give us any." I think that's what this is. An answer free movie. I actually think that this movie is about nothing. The Coen's, already having won their Academy Awards, just turned in some nothing. I tried reading some other reviews online, something I don't normally do when writing my own, and they all came back one of two ways. In paraphrase: 1) The Coen brothers deliver their most personal, dark, and humorous film to date. A modern day Job. A masterpiece. 2) The Coen brothers made a beautiful, empty movie. Unfunny, and ultimately meaningless. I'm obviously in the latter category. In one of Stuhlbarg's bizarre dreams he's teaching his class about the Uncertainty Principle of physics and he exclaims, "We can't ever know anything!" And I guess with this movie, we never really will.)