Random Movie: A Serious Man (2009)

Written by: PBF

What a surprise, I am reviewing a Coen Brothers’ (Joel and Ethan) movie. The hell you say! Movie Scum is nothing, if not consistent.

A Serious Man is a glimpse in to Larry Gopnick’s ever unraveling life. As of late, he has been plagued with quite unpleasant yet sometimes amusing (to us) events and he is struggling to figure out “what’s going on.” This is a re-telling of the story of Job, set in the 1960’s. Job’s faith is tested through a series of events (stemmed from a wager between God and the Devil) and though he may question why he is being tested, his faith remains intact. You will need to watch the film to see how Larry fairs.

In the library of Coen films that exists, I have seen much better. The film is still “good” in the sense that the acting was extraordinary and the story was very interesting. But somehow, these did not mix together into a what should have been an awesome picture (despite the Best Picture nomination). I think the film was directed well, as are most if not all Coen Brothers movies. I think the script was lacking. It just was not interesting enough to me. There was simply too much middle of the story. I would call it a trainwreck, but a trainwreck would be more interesting. This was like hour 2-3 of a 4 hour train ride though the midwest. I can’t say that I did not connect with the character, because I did, but the story was just not executed that well. You could argue that this may be the directors’ fault as opposed to the writers’, but that would ultimately be moot as they are the same. The standard Coen-isms are there, like excellent use of music and the very effective use of pauses. In fact, in every Cohen Brothers movie, their use of silence and quick cuts after a facial expressions is quite consistently effective. This is in stark contrast to say, a Mamet film in which there is sometimes an actor that has no grasphold of how he writes and struggles with his alarmingly realistic dialogue. Coen Brothers films are quite well cast in that regard.

A film, at it’s core, is a script. You can direct the shit out of it, but if the events themselves are not that interesting, it is only going to be so good. Do not get me wrong, there is a lot to like about this film. But unfortunately for me, the uninteresting script counterbalances all of those things almost evenly.