The pooh-poohing about the Coen Bros.' latest is all hot air. I really don't think A Serious Man would or could win Best Picture, but it will be nominated. The subject matter is not garden variety Oscar bait, but it stands as one of the top prestige pedigree movies that will be in the running for awards. ASM is rather unique amongst its peers in the race as well, which raises its chances in the year when variety is the spice of Oscar...but enough Oscar talk eating its own tail.
A Serious Man opens with an invented Jewish fable, which I gather is intended to feature the ancestors of the family at the movie's center. Michael Stuhlbarg is the fresh new face of the movie, and he has the most delicate, nuanced job in playing Larry Gopnick, a mathematics professor and father whose life and family are crumbling around him. His kids Sarah and Danny (Jessica McManus and Aaron Wolff) are shooting off in their own directions as kids do in their tween and teen years. They only acknowledge their dad's existence when they need him to do things for them. His wife Judith (Sari Lennick) is leaving him for someone he has trouble believing she's going with. Larry's brother Arthur (Richard Kind) has various issues that prevent him from functioning in the world without Larry protecting him. On top of that, Prof. Gopnick on the tenure track and he's awaiting the final decision of the committee that holds his fate in their hands. The thing is, the movie really isn't about any of the crap going on in Larry's life.
A Serious Man is more an indictment on traditionalist thinking and customs, which only make the misery of life more insufferable. Just when you think a nice Bar Mitzvah or chat with a rabbi is going to add some normalcy to things and make everything a little better for a short while, you're dead wrong. Life is a never-ending series of compounding complications that suffocate you faster each time you break free. Hiding for shelter behind these customs only puts more stuff in between you and the weight that's trying to crush you. Jesus H. Christ of Nazareth, that's pretty bleak. People said No Country for Old Men was bleak, but this hits people where it hurts the most: right in the suburbs.
I should mention while I'm thinking of it that A Serious Man is not "too Jewy". I know comparatively as little about Judaism as I do Catholicism or Islam or Methodism. If you've got a deep-seated aversion to Jews or Judaism, you've got other problems and won't like many things in addition to this movie.
Every actor on screen is on the same wavelength of not-quite-reality as one another, true to the Coens' form. Fyvush Finkel is a welcome presence at the beginning, and various others keep things going throughout, including Fred Melamed as Sy Ableman, Simon Helberg as a young rabbi, Adam Arkin as Larry's lawyer, and David Kang as perturbed student Clive Park. If I go on, I'll list the whole cast as having been amazing. There's not a single weak link. A great deal of credit should go to the Coens in casting all these lovely people playing unlikable creatures. Joel and Ethan have flawlessly created yet another self-contained parallel universe. I hope everyone has a chance to see this before it disappears to make way for holiday fare.