Review: "A Serious Man"

I've come to accept that some of the films that sneak into Fantastic Fest under the cloak of a Secret Screening have only the most nebulous connections to the genre world. I mean, last year's "The Brothers Bloom", despite its merits, of which there were a handful, doesn't really feature zombies, kung-fu fighting, aliens, psycho killers, giant Japanese robots, Korean gangsters, or any of the other things we've come to expect in the typical Fest flick. But at least it was a madcap caper, and there's some precedent for those to be shown here.

I have no explanation for why "A Serious Man" was selected, unless (and I am most reluctant to entertain this theory) the programmers, in a moment of weakness, succumbed to the increasing Hollywood attention being directed their way and simply scheduled it just to bag another claim to a big premiere. I would hate to see the Secret Screenings degenerate to that level, where some studio looking for a little bit of hipster buzz manages to cram some mainstream schlock into our beloved gathering.

I'm not saying that "A Serious Man" is schlock, although had it been, it would've proved more entertaining. No, this movie is well-made and features solid performances (particularly on the part of the dude who played Sy Abelman), but it is apparently about Big Ideas, and those themes are presented in a completely aimless way. The movie keeps promising that it is about something, and clearly intends to provoke thought, but it turns into an endless waiting game where things are suggested but never developed or completed.

Clearly, the Coen Brothers want to replay the tale of Job here. The protagonist, of a sudden, is beset on all sides: his bid for tenure is being threatened by an anonymous source making serious allegations about his character, his wife asks for a divorce, his unemployed brother is leaching off him, his neighbor is slowly taking over his backyard, and one of his students is trying to extort a passing grade out of him. Obviously, if he had a herd of cattle, it would be contracting hoof-and-mouth disease, just to complete the Jobian parallel.

Desperate, he seeks advice from rabbis and legal aid from lawyers. But the first two rabbis he consults prove to be no solace, and his lawyer can only promise that he's in for a tough time. There is a revered and aged senior rabbi in town, but he refuses to see our hero. And just as a senior partner at the law firm is about to deliver a cunning plan to help fight the neighbor's property grab, he drops dead without ever saying a word. (I have to guess that these two senior citizens are stand-ins for God: the rabbi, who is reputed to be a fount of wisdom, makes himself unavailable, and the veteran lawyer never delivers his insight to our beleagured protagonist. Thus the Job stand-in remains essentially alone and must be reliant only upon his own faith and resources.)

The story of Job is really one of the most bizarre tales in the Bible. It's one of the few times we see God in non-smiting action, and what is he doing? Cheerily chatting up Satan and making a bet with him about how a random sucker will react when his world falls apart. God is keenly interested in making a point to Satan, but rather less so when it comes to dealing with Job himself. When Job finally cracks, God pimp-slaps him nine ways to next Sunday in one of my favorite passages, which basically boils down to "Yo, when I was, you know, designing and building Earth and the birds and volcanoes and rain and hedgehogs and peanut butter and what-not, I surely don't recall you hanging around, offering advice. Were you there? Are you God? No? Then how about taking this giant cup of STFU?" Which may have been the first documented case of being told both "You'll understand when you're older" and "Because I said so."

There are a lot of dimensions to the rendition of the woes of Job and a hell of a lot to consider, but there are few straight-forward conclusions. There's no nice and succinct message to be kind to others or to give money to the poor or to honor your elders. You could maybe take away that this corporeal existence is meant to be one that both blows and makes no sense, except there's that little coda where God, as a kind of after-thought, gives Job a bigger ranch, a larger herd, more money, and a totally cooler family. Which in our times just seems a bit creepy on His part: "Hey, Job, I killed your wife, but here's a replacement for her--and as a bonus, she's really smokin'." Ultimately, I sometimes wonder if the whole story is one giant Zen koan.

So, not really the best source material in terms of coming to any sort of tidy, logical, and meaningful resolution, happy or otherwise. And the end that the Coen Brothers ultimately thrust upon us, after a great deal of plotless rambling, is pretty abrupt and very much in the spirit of "Life sucks and then you die." This may be a particularly Jewish conclusion. Not being Jewish myself, I can't say with any certainty, but this is unabashedly an extremely Jewish film, so I may completely be missing some major cultural nuances that would help inform my viewing.

There's also a prologue to the movie which involves a dybbuk, and that part is excellent. And completely unrelated to everything else, except to indicate that no one can actually know anything in this world, and however you choose to act, you're probably wrong and will end up just screwing yourself. So, on second thought, it may have *everything* to do with the remainder of the film.

"A Serious Man" did succeed in making me think, but mainly about how the Coen Brothers have about a .200 batting average, which is barely tolerable for a Golden Glove shortstop, but not so good for major filmmakers. This is a complete misfire and in its amorphous and interminable rambling doesn't even hit the smirking level of "I don't know--what do *you* think it means?" To be avoided by any except those of a Germanic nihilitic bent.