Larry Gopnick is a schmendrick. He is also a serious man trying to keep his life from spinning out of control. Problem is, one smack upside the head follows another and Larry turns one way and then the other but never quite sees where the last one nor the next one is coming from. A schmendrick. I can identify, a therapist once called me that. What clinches my ability to identify is Larry’s pre Bar Mitzvah pot-sucking son who gets chased home every afternoon after religious school. For me it wasn’t Fagelman trying to collect the $20 I owed him for buds that made me run. It was big, blonde, bue-eyed Mitchell Mason who did it just for fun, and of course because I was obviously Jewish. My guess is for the Coen brothers this stuff also passes for nostalgia. This is a warm-hearted paean to middleclass life lived by typical Jews in the 1967 Midwest, with a lot of accompanying mishegass.Not that it lacks the characteristic dread and suspense that the brothers are so good at conjuring up. The first scene takes care of that. Some primordial village dwelling predecessor of the Gopnick family encounters what the wife swears is a ghost in the woods. The hapless husband invites the ghost in, he thinks the revered rabbi is alive, she disproves it by sticking an ice pick in the rabbi’s chest. Unfortunately for the couple, eventually he bleeds. What does this scene have to do with the movie? Who knows, it’s the Coen brothers.
Poor Larry, a Physics professor seeking tenure at a Midwestern university, he is beset on all sides. His wife is furious with him for not knowing why she is furious. She takes it out on him by having an affair with Sy Abelman, an unattractive pompous ass. His unemployable eccentric brother lives with them, and his teenage children ignore him except when they need money. One of the members of his tenure committee is receiving anonymous letters accusing Larry of improprieties with coeds. Larry is not a devout man but seeks advice from the town’s rabbis. He wants to know why Hashem (God) has afflicted him. What does he want from him? If this reminds you of the story of Job from the Old Testament you know what kind of answers Larry is likely to find. The three rabbis talk in parables, or they talk about parking lots as a way of explaining the glory of God’s plan.
The casting of Michael Stuhlberg as Larry is brilliant, as is wife Sari Lennick. Familiar faces abound but none have the prominence which would stand out in this fine ensemble. Together they transport you back to a younger time; Jefferson Starship, F Troop on TV, fuzzy reception, and antennas. The film will not go down as the Coen brothers’ finest work but I found it funny and entertaining. Just watch out for that --------- at the end.
A Serious Man. Written by and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
