TBOExtra.com - TBOExtra is Tampa Bay Entertainment Online

Movie review: Coens will make you laugh at 'Serious Man'

Focus Features

Michael Stuhlbarg, left, stars as Larry Gopnik and Fred Melamed stars as Sy Ableman in "A Serious Man."

By CHRISTY LEMIRE

The Associated Press

Published: October 29, 2009

Updated: 10/29/2009 02:46 pm

Related Links

It's hard to put a finger on exactly what a Coen brothers movie is. That's part of the great allure of them.

As writers and directors, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen don't just keep pumping out the same movie over and over, as so many filmmakers do. From the comic antics of "Raising Arizona" to the noir of "The Man Who Wasn't There," the goofballs of "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" to the outlaws of "No Country for Old Men," they're all strikingly different. They surprise us.

But there are some thematic threads that frequently run through them, which get tangled together in what is the Coens' most thoughtful and personal film, "A Serious Man."

Basically the point here is that the universe is random, it gives you insurmountable challenges, and there's nothing you can do about it. The concepts of justice and karma are irrelevant: Things happen to people whether their behavior is good or bad, and you can question them all you like, but good luck finding any answers.

You could invoke "The Big Lebowski" in trying to explain this philosophy: They're nihilists. But the Coens are clearly having a little fun in making life so difficult for the nebbish Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor raising his family in a suburb of Minneapolis in 1967, a place and time inspired by the Coens' childhood.

Larry tries to do the right thing at home and at work -- tries to be a serious man -- but out of nowhere one day, the problems start piling up until they reach an absurd level.

His wife, Judith (Sari Lennick), informs him that she's leaving him for a longtime friend of theirs, the smarmy widower Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). His son, Danny (Aaron Wolff), has been getting into trouble at Hebrew school. Daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) is stealing cash from his wallet to save up for a nose job. And his unemployed brother, Arthur (Richard Kind), who's been sleeping on the couch, spends his days doodling equations in a notebook.

Meanwhile, Larry is up for tenure at the university, which his boss assures him is imminent even as he drops passive-aggressive hints that there's a letter-writing campaign against him. And then there is the sizable bribe that an intense Korean student has offered him.

Watching and wondering how and when he'll snap provides dark humor, but also a mounting sense of unease, and it should provoke debate about the nature of faith.

Stuhlbarg betrays nothing in his plain, stoic visage; he trudges through no matter what, and yet he makes us long for everything to turn out all right. By comparison, Melamed is wonderfully expressive as the magnanimous homewrecker. Early on, Sy enters Larry's house, hugs him tight and assures him, "Larry, we're gonna be fine."

Probably not -- not in the Coens' hands. But even if it's not immediately clear what they have in mind for their characters, they'll keep you thinking about them long afterward.

MOVIE REVIEW

'A Serious Man' ***½

MOVIE BOARD RATING: R; profanity, some sexuality, nudity and brief violence

STARS: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Sari Lennick, Fred Melamed, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus

DIRECTORS: Joel and Ethan Coen

PLOT SUMMARY: A Midwestern professor who only wants to be a good man begins to crack under the weight of a series of misfortunes, including an unemployed brother who moves in and his wife leaving him.

RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes

ON THE WEB: filminfocus.com/focusfeatures/film/a_serious _man

Movies are rated on a scale of zero to four stars.