Job in Suburbia
Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen
Writ. Joel and Ethan Coen
2009
“When the truth is found to be lies
And all the hope inside you dies
Don't you want somebody to love?…”
This strain of jangling 60’s rock from Jefferson Airplane echoes through “A Serious Man” like a witch’s prophesy, its simple rhyme rattling in the turntable, an omen of unrest and desperation. Its foil, a lonely, mellifluous Hebrew hymn, provides the sole other musical backdrop in the Coen brothers’ achingly uncomfortable ode to Jewish manhood. The one is raucous, the other meditative; together they express the alternating tantrum and resignation of a man coming face to ugly face with life.
Larry Gopnik, the “serious man” in question, is just trying to live a virtuous life. He has actively averted a midlife crisis and is about to be rewarded with tenure as a physics professor. That’s not to say his life is perfect—his children whine constantly, his brother bums in his living room, and his wife cites marriage problems—but there is nothing grave enough to upset the essential balance of his 1960’s Jewish-American middle class home. Until there is. One by one, crises rear their heads in Larry’s placid life: his student is trying to bribe him. Someone is lodging complaints against him to the tenure committee. His wife wants a ritual divorce. What begins with a simple bad Monday evolves into a bona fide series of calamities that bring Larry to the brink, forcing him finally to seek answers from the rabbis in his synagogue.
Title slides divide the film into three acts, named for each of the rabbis that Larry visits on his quest for understanding. With each visit, Larry confronts further disillusionment with the world that is unfolding before him, and diminishing resources to help him cope. Hoping to tap into a wealth of ancient wisdom, he meets with inane platitudes that do nothing to scratch his philosophical itch. “If there are no answers, then why does God give us the questions?” As the film delves deeper and deeper into a well of unanswered pain, the depiction is by turns absurdist and disturbingly realistic. It’s an ode to and apology for modern Jewish-nihilist angst, a dark comedy with strong emphasis on the adjective.
It’s not that it isn’t funny; there are brilliant (but mostly subtle) jokes, especially with regard to Sy Ableman, who is like John Cusack’s nemesis from “High Fidelity” shot through with an incredibly grating sense of shalom. But the humor is dried by the arid sun of the setting and cinematography. Hazy suburban hell is nothing new to film (Donnie Darko, American Beauty), but the Coens marry style to philosophical substance particularly well. And they’ve got more cinematic tricks than that up their sleeves. The frequent dream scenes manage accomplish several goals that evade most filmmakers: a) they evoke actual dreaming, b) they illustrate moral and psychological issues without force-feeding, and c) they genuinely trick us. The same goes for the point-of-view camerawork. While often a gimmick, the directors use shifting perspectives to get the audience inside the heads of characters that we might otherwise dismiss as simply pitiful. The murky marijuana camera filter could be annoying, but instead, it feels accurate, even necessary; we feel the same need to numb and escape as the characters do. The construction of the film, the beams that support it, are masterful and spare. The dialogue is genuine and short, distinctly Jewish without caricature, revealing without excess cleverness. Our protagonist is a kind of everyman, but Michael Stuhlbarg’s performance is quite personal, with a touch of idiosyncrasy. His face elicits immediate sympathy, dynamic and quiet at once. The characters that surround the hero are not psychologically developed, but they need not be. They are not people, per se; they are figures in the tableaus of the Coens’ amorality play, and as such, they function beautifully, each a unique cog in the undoing of Larry Gopnik. While almost like theater, at least in concept, the execution is intensely filmic, filled with mundane details of wind through trees, pencils on paper, static on a record. These moments constantly ground the film in reality, rather than indulging the tendency to see the story as a tragic fantasy.
Though the Coens would identify themselves as mere storytellers and not philosophers, the heart of the film and the hero is philosophical. In a scene in his office, Larry confronts a student whom he suspects of leaving a monetary bribe on his desk. “Actions have consequences,” he intones. The student replies, “Yes. Often.” Larry is visibly upset: “Always! Actions always have consequences!” Larry’s disgruntled reaction reflects the tragic flaw that the Coens have given him: the belief that the world operates in a just system of cause and effect. When his wife asks him for a divorce, Larry’s shock betrays his worldview: “What have I done?” His wife finds his response simplistic. “Don’t be a child. You haven’t ‘done’ anything.” The film follows Larry’s evolving perspective on righteousness, “seriousness,” and how worthwhile it is to lead a moral life.
After having seen the film and reading this review, you might be inclined to think I give it too much credit. So much of it is mundane, even grotesque, the dialogue too blunt, the story dull and bleak. But Joel and Ethan Coen have always made intentional films, and “A Serious Man” takes craft very seriously. Perhaps wanting to ensure audiences that their film is a serious one, the Coens begin the film with a dark, fantastical scene, seemingly a Russian-Jewish folk tale. The scene is never referenced again, but it casts a moody pall over what is to come. Most importantly, it tells the audience to pay attention to the spiritual themes ahead. What does death mean? Are any of the characters dead? Will any of them die? They set us up to spend the film intrigued and suspicious, on the lookout for ghosts and answers. And I hope it will not spoil the film for you to tell you that we never get assurance about either of these phenomena; Larry’s lecture about Schrödinger’s cat is a canny reminder that God, Hashem, does not give us a lot of ground on which to stand. At one point, a character shouts to Larry, “Accept mystery!” But it’s hard. And it doesn’t satisfy. “A Serious Man” is an unsettling film about a man’s sincere search for the meaning of life. As we watch, we wonder if we would be able to give Larry any better answers than his rambling rabbis. And if we can’t, God help us. Myth:
a) The quest for wisdom and knowledge, especially as received from sages, is a common folk and religious tale, especially in Eastern cultures. Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and those familiar with Greek philosophy will find this construction familiar. Humans have always sought answers from those “on the hill” who purport to have wisdom or answers. This practice is somewhat archaic compared to the postmodern sensibilities of finding the answers inside oneself, or creating one’s own meaning (existentialism). But even the moderns and postmoderns seek wisdom from the sage; they just do it on the therapist’s couch.
b) The Jewish setting of the film invokes the Hebraic tale of Job, beloved of God. God allowed Satan to test Job’s faith with innumerable trials that caused Job to cry out in despair. God answered him with a declaration of his sovereignty, his creative and administrative acts, and the fact that he need not explain or excuse himself to man. Job repents of his human conception of justice and acknowledges that God knows what he is doing. “A Serious Man” is an interesting modern response to the same situation.
Moral:
“A Serious Man” is a blatantly moral film (though certainly not moralistic). It directly addresses modern generic concepts of righteousness, and especially Jewish righteousness. It challenges the frequently uttered platitude that the meaning of life (or our best stab at it) is “helping others.” It asks why we decide to act morally, and whether it matters. I won’t expound upon all the conclusions it does or doesn’t come to.
Zeitgeist Factor:
The film, set in the 1960’s, does not make an effort to be especially edgy or contemporary; Joel and Ethan wrote it based on some of their childhood experiences. But the problem of evil doesn’t go away, and the sense of myth that pervades the film provides timelessness. The idea that the meaning of life is altruism is perhaps more prevalent than ever in the age of optimistic, activistic Generation Y, and it is rare that helping others or saving the environment is actually challenged as an ultimately meaningful pursuit.
