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Screen Spotlight Featured Reviews

A Serious Man

Written by Jonathan Jacobs

Professor Lawrence Godnik is the most educated imbecile in the universe, at least circa 1957. Living with the ugliest wife possible, having two lovely children, and caring for a mentally handicapped brother cannot be easy. Particularly not if this very wife is an adulterer with an older hideous man. To make matters worse he is on the verge of receiving tenure when all sorts of inescapable problems infect every aspect of his life. Joel and Ethan Coen have established a drama unlike any other. Love it, hate it, or find it boring, A Serious Man is a film that leaves out simplicity and gives us a tremendous drama that we have no real reason to care about.

The character Professor Larry Godnik is for lack of a better word a total moron. He is the smartest physics professor at an unnamed university but when it comes to know-how, common sense and plain people skills he is an absolute nothing. Being up for tenure can be an unnerving experience. Take it from me, a professor of five years who was never tenured, it is the goal, much like winning the Super Bowl is for an NFL player. The difference is being tenured happens once and you are a hall of famer. Godnik’s son’s bar mitzvah is scheduled in two weeks. What a long and grueling two weeks those will be. Mrs. Godnik is an unfeeling tramp who has no regard for her husband’s feelings. She finds him completely boring (which the audience does too). This would seem understandable if her lover were not 70 (she is 40 maybe) and a total loser. Larry is kind, ordinary and inoffensive, the three hallmarks of boredom. He is the provider nonetheless, and is completely unsuspecting of his wife’s affair. She considerately informs him at dinner with the kids. For some reason Larry is unaware that he can have his own bank account, an attorney so he will not have to leave his own home when it was his wife’s adultery that caused the mess, and does not realize that he can have a life after divorce.

After consulting with his very expensive attorney, while paying for his son’s bar mitzvah and the mortgage, Larry takes his legal counsel’s advice and consults with three rabbis. The first rabbi is a junior rabbi in training. He must have taken lessons from Elaine’s Rabbi on "Seinfeld". He is a total numb-nuts with no personality or character or sage advice. The second reb (short designation for rabbi) is not particularly helpful either. The third rabbi tells him a story about a dentist which he never finishes and ultimately has no relevance to anything he is going through. There is only one rabbi left to speak with, Rabbi Marshak, and he only grants audiences to recently bar or bat mitzvahed boys and girls. Feeling completely forlorn and hopeless, Larry is forced to live a little.

Living a little is not easy for Larry to do. He is so accustomed to everything in his life being routine. He knows nothing about fun or deviance. He sees no point in doing anything against the grain. After visiting his neighbor who is actually really sexy and hot for a Long Island woman, he begins having dreams about sex, his brother being murdered by his other rather hayseed neighbor, and various other rebellious scenarios. While living at the hotel his wife’s lover told him to go to, Larry receives the news that the lover has died in a car accident. Our protagonist would be happy to let bygones be bygones and go back to being the happily married couple. Still, his wife persists on getting divorced until the bar mitzvah when she comes to her senses.

A Serious Man reminds me of being in Hebrew school. I attended after school classes for three hours twice a week from the first through the sixth grade at Temple Beth El in West Hartford, CT. I stopped only after I had been bar mitzvahed. I always had the biggest yutzes for principles there who had no personality whatsoever. It is the culture often. It is expected that we Jews marry other Jews which I am sure is the way in most cultures. My parents and grandparents would love this movie. I appreciate it for its nostalgic value. Joel and Ethan Coen portray perhaps the lamest character ever invented in some of the most Jerry Springer-esque circumstances ever. This makes for a brilliant contrast. Still, despite all of the "action" and "suspense", I find myself really caring less. I am sure I could have offered a better recap also, but I feel as though my point is conveyed without it. There is nothing much to see here, but still it is so watchable in a grueling way. Hard to put my finger on it.