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In Reply to: A Serious Man posted by tunenut on October 24, 2009 at 21:51:04:
The lead actor just didn't draw me in. He's a broadway actor and his skills simply didn't translate to the big screen. The Coens tried to get him to be like the slack-jawed Turturro in Barton Fink, but Turturro is a far more engrossing film actor who can instantly convey emotion on a visceral level.Another problem was the message. Usually the Coens can offer a new way of looking at things, but not here. It's just a cheap narrative to arrive at the same Hollywood cliche: don't look for answers in religion. To me that was very disappointing. I can get that same perspective anywhere; I don't need it from the Coens.
I had a problem with the depiction of Judaism. My friends and I were Bar Mitzvah'ed during the height of a drug craze, yet we didn't sneak into the bathroom to get stoned before reading our Haftorah portion. I don't want to give away the film's "climax" such as it was, but it's not really a spoiler to say the kid got stoned and the picture was manipulated to show a tunnel-vision type of treatment. This did not exactly show the ceremony in the best light--literally and figuratively. I seriously doubt anyone has gotten stoned before reciting the Haftorah, including Joel or Ethan Coen. Why, then, did they put it in the movie? Yeah, it's kind of entertaining but do we really need this negative imagery of one of the most important occasions in a Jewish kid's life? Not to mention the family dysfunction on every level. The rabbis all portrayed to be buffoons. The relative arrested for gambling and sex crimes. I wasn't digging it.
While I consider the Coens my favorite filmmakers currently working, it's not unprecedented for their films to fall flat for me. The Man Who Wasn't There didn't work. Neither did Intolerable Cruelty. Even Miller's Crossing lacked magic that so many other Coen productions have. Barton Fink, Big Lebowski and O Brother blew me away on so many levels. I was really hoping A Serious Man would too. But it never got off the ground. As you say, it's a convincing period piece but I found no meat to bite into. Hopefully their next project, a remake of True Grit, proves better.
Edits: 10/29/09
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Follow Ups
- Fell flat for me...I was really looking forward to it, too - Jazz Inmate 16:30:05 10/28/09 (0)
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