A Serious Man

Congratulations reader, I have good news for you, but maybe not as good news for me. The good news is that you’re going to be getting three reviews by the end of this week because A Serious Man, Inglourious Basterds and The Holiday all tied in the latest voting poll. The bad news for me is that is a hell of a lot of work.

Well, to be honest with you, A Serious Man is what I wanted to review the most out of those choices, so I’ll do that one first. Tomorrow, I will do The Holiday, and over the weekend I will review Inglourious Basterds. I will also start a new poll after all these are done.

A few months ago when A Serious Man came out, about all I knew about it was it was something about a Jewish family and that it was made by the Coen Brothers. Well, I’ve been a fan of the Coen’s since I first saw Raising Arizona at about the age of ten, so I always look forward to their movies.

So the movie begins and we are introduced to a Russian Jewish couple sometime probably 1800’s, and the husband informs his wife that he was walking home in the snow and the wheel of his wagon fell off and a nice man stopped and helped him come home. The husband tells his wife this and she informs him that that man is dead, he died three years ago.

The ‘dead’ man then comes in and warms by the fire and the wife argues with him whether or not he’s a spirit, or a ‘dybbuk’. She then stabs the man and he begins to bleed and he leaves into the storm complaining, but not dying.

Time then passes to the 1950’s or 60’s and we’re introduced to an American Jewish dysfunctional family. The husband, Larry Gopnik is a physics professor and the wife is a crazy woman who wants a divorce from her husband because she’s screwing the neighbor.

His son is always being chased by a another kid to whom he owes money, and he steals from his sister, who keeps yelling because that is her rightfully owned money (which she steals from Larry’s wallet). Larry also has his mentally and socially handicapped brother, Arthur, living with them as well.

The story is about Larry trying to cope with his family, his wife working on getting a divorce, his son bickering, his daughter bitching, his brother gambling, annoying neighbors, Rabbis who don’t give any useful advice, and an Asian student who bribed him for a passing grade in his class and is threatening to sue him if he doesn’t.

The story has several twists and turns to it. I laughed at several moments, and it made you think at other moments. It was a very well-done dark comedy, and you find yourself rooting for Larry throughout the whole movie, hoping that it ends right for him.

Well, I’m not going to give away the ending, if you want to know it, you’ll just have to go see it yourself. It was definitely a fantastic movie, I loved it. Definitely not a children’s movie, but it would be a great movie to watch after you put the kids to bed and you microwave a bag of popcorn and snuggle up with a loved one. I give it 9 out of 10.