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According to the Coen brothers, straight forward action is required when a dybbuk walks into your house. You don't mess around, you get down to business. It's a lesson learned the hard way by Larry Gopnik (Michael Stulhbarg), a modern day Job who's life is in free-fall. The physics teacher learns that promotion is waiting in the wings on the same day his wife talks divorce. She's tired of Larry's disturbed brother living in their bathroom and has found comfort elsewhere. To make matters worse a grade-grabbing student has boxed Larry into a corner, his redneck neighbour is poaching suburban lawn by stealth, and a temptress has moved in next door. If only he could take some action.
In semi-autobiographical territory, the Coen's have delivered their most personal, certainly the most 'Jewish' film of their career. It comes on the back of Oscar winning No Country For Old Men and the comic hit Burn After Reading. It's also their least obviously commercial film in recent years, with no stars and a couple of familiar TV faces on the bill. Not that star power has ever been the significant attraction of a Brothers film.
And A Serious Man is undeniably attractive, although being a story of certain flavour and not to all tastes, how compelling it remains is a question of enthusiasm for their determinedly oddball approach. A lengthy segue involving a dentist is as enjoyable as it is inscrutably placed. Yet their sure-fire dramatic timing remains grounded in a bed of superior production that helps cut through potentially alien cultural stylings. Stulhbarg's central performance is beautifully nuanced as he turns Larry from stereotype to character. As expected, there's not a frame that hasn't been hand-placed with intent and purpose, and fans will not be disappointed.
// COLIN FRASER
moviereview colin fraser film movie australia review critic flicks