A Serious Man
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
Cert: 15
Time: 1 hr 45 mins
This is both an irritating and alienating movie. I shall explain.
Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlberg) is a physics professor at a quiet university in Minnesota. He is a bright man leading an uneventful life, or so you might think. One day his wife (Sari Lennick) drops a bombshell by requesting a divorce. From that point on Larry’s life goes into freefall as he is accused of accepting a bribe from a pupil, gets into debt, agrees to be evicted from the family home - on the say so of his wife and her oily lover, Sy Ableman - whilst all the time trying to keep his dysfunctional family on the straight and narrow. To help him deal with these crises’ he turns to three rabbis for help but they just show themselves to be both useless and uncaring.
Throughout, Larry behaves as if he has no brain – he is the world’s cleverest thick bloke. Time and again you think, “No Larry, don’t do it”, but he does and it just gets irritating, so much so that one ends up feeling no sympathy for him. Even the humour passed me by, principally because I’m not Jewish.
All of which left the impression that this film is an acquired taste. Unfortunately, not mine.
Rating: 2/5
Patrons: 11
