A Serious Man (2009)
*NOTE: This is one of the few film reviews that contains spoilers.
RL SCORE: 3/6
IMBD SCORE: 6/10
Aggregate: 9/16 – it’s not background noise, but it doesn’t deserve your undivided attention either.
Photo retrieved from: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-serious-man-2009
A Serious Man is a colorful, vibrant film that brings to life 1960s suburban America through the day’s visuals, music, fashion, and customs. While the initial hypothesis is that the film examines a contemporary Jewish man’s response to encountering the modern-day calamities of Job, a few things stand out as less than plausible. Nevertheless, A Serious Man is a fascinating film with many elements to keep you engaged and pondering well after the credits roll.
The Coen brothers' primary use of visuals to create an illustrative and vibrant world is through bright colors and wide-angle shots. During Sy's funeral, the vibrant burgundy-like colors of the carpet in the synagogue instantly grab your attention. The orange curtains, lighting, and reflection during Larry’s marijuana smoke session with his wannabe mistress, alongside her infinitely vibrant attire (and lack thereof), serve as a few illustrations of how bright and vivid the film is from start to finish.
There are also moments of intense audio overlay. The heartbeat, for example, dominates the backdrop when Larry and Mrs. Samsky smoke weed in Mrs. Samsky’s living room. Shortly thereafter, their high is interrupted by piercingly loud sirens and the officers bringing Uncle Arthur back to the house. From there, a loud dialogue between Larry, Aruthur, and the officers ensues. We get beautiful, expansive, wide-angle shots of the neighborhood in the background as we learn of the charges against Uncle Arthur. Mrs. Samsky lurks in the background in her orange top and canary-yellow shorts. From there, the son asks what sodomy is, and the scene cuts to Larry and his lawyer deliberating next steps in front of a cache of law books and a long conference table. Overall, this film utilizes many different lens approaches, with wide lenses used to evoke the magnitude of the new challenge that Larry finds himself forced to confront.
The calamities and challenges range as they relate to the extent they’re in the viewers’ faces, but death and destruction are looming themes throughout the entire film. From nearly the beginning, and seemingly for no reason, Judith, Larry’s wife, asks for a divorce and shacks up with a neighbor, Sy. Larry gives a student a failing grade on the midterm, then the student tries to bribe him. When he doesn’t accept the bribe, Larry is visited by the student’s parent, who threatens him with a phony lawsuit that insinuates he did take a bribe. While the film aims to keep the viewer focused on the latest calamity facing Larry, the viewer’s attention is often temporarily diverted by the sudden death of a minor character. When Larry gets in a fender bender, Sy dies in a car accident. When Larry finds out that Arthur is facing sodomy charges and was likely brutalized by homophobic cops, the assisting attorney on his case dies from a sudden heart attack. More than any character, the antagonist of A Serious Man seems to be the existential calamities that are ever present in Larry’s life. The Coen brothers do a masterful job of illustrating this with the final scene.
When Larry receives a $3,000 bill from his attorney, he considers taking the money from Clive’s father, the student he previously failed. While Clive contemplates changing the grade, Danny and his classmates are evacuated from their classroom to the basement as a tornado warning has been issued. Larry changes the grade and makes it a passing one. Immediately after doing so, his phone rings. Larry receives a call from his doctor, who we see screening Larry for cancer near the beginning of the film. Larry’s doctor insists that he go to the office to review the screens immediately. After getting off the phone, Danny offers money to the bully, which he has spent the entire film running home to avoid. Yet, the bully is uninterested in Danny. His whole focus is on the impending tornado, which will be a catastrophic tragedy.
For all the calamities Larry faces throughout the film, there is a genuine curiosity about why they are happening at each step. This final scene, however, likely leaves no doubt in Larry’s mind. He accepted the bribe and gave Clive a passing grade. As a result, one can infer that the doctor has calamitous news, and his son Danny is about to experience a truly traumatic encounter as the tornado approaches the school. The Coen brothers explore so many different elements all the way up to the credits. One of the overarching questions may be why good things happen to seemingly good and decent people, but the final scene forces you to ask another, deeper question – do bad things happen to us because of our own wrongdoings?
At the time of this writing, A Serious Man is available for VOD purchase. Check out its current streaming status here.
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