Movie Review: A Serious Man (2009)

The Coen brothers are masters at making both absurdly dark comedies and bleak dramas.  Although it’s tough to place at the onset, A Serious Man isn’t content to be a comedy or a drama.  Frequently oscillating between laugh-out-loud absurdity and increasingly complex dramatic torments, A Serious Man may not be the most cohesive Coen movie to date, but it nonetheless fits in well with the rest of the Coens’ impressive canon.

A Serious Man centers around Lawrence “Larry” Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a university professor who, to put things lightly, is encountering some faith-testing problems.  His wife is leaving him for his recently widowed friend, his kids are always fighting, and the committee in charge of judging his application for tenure may or may not be receiving disparaging letters regarding Larry’s credentials.  He also has to deal with neighbors who constantly give him menacing looks and the presence of “Uncle Arthur” (Richard Kind), who is having more luck draining his cyst and writing his statistical manifesto than finding a job.  Oh, and Larry’s rebellious son has a looming bar mitzvah.  Did I mention the student who’s attempting to blackmail Larry over a recent test score?  It may not be a quick moving film, but A Serious Man has a lot going on.

The cast, made up mostly of relative unknowns and background players, does a good job of keeping the material moving and no one really seems out of place or overmatched.  Stuhlbarg does a superb job of playing Gopnik, who is neurotic and troubled and doing his best not to break down, even in the face of a relative whirlwind of troubles coming his way.  Although probably far-fetched, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibilities that Stuhlbarg could even find himself with an Oscar nomination for his role.  The Coen brothers and the actors they direct are no strangers to Oscar nominations.

Even though it’s complex, A Serious Man is not overly confusing, at least not in the literal sense of knowing what is going on and who people are.  The Coens do a great job, both as writers and as directors, of making sure that the story, for all its endless piling on and taking away plot points, never becomes overwhelming.  In fact, I never really thought about how much was going on in A Serious Man until the credits started rolling and I began to think about how many points were left only semi-resolved.

Halfway through A Serious Man, a rabbi tells a story about a dentist.  The story is a few minutes long and ends up having more questions in it than answers.  In a way, this story is a microcosm of the movie’s plot as a whole:  The Coen’s didn’t forget to wrap up all their plotlines; on the contrary, they leave things purposefully ambiguous, knowing that they themselves don’t always have the answers to the questions they ask.

To some, the ending of A Serious Man will be frustrating and confounding.  In fact, it seemed that about three or four new ideas and situations were introduced in the last five minutes of the film, and many more from earlier on are never answered.  The movie chooses to end during the climax of all the preceding action instead of winding down and attempting to concretely settle every bit of plot.

I probably don’t know enough about the Jewish faith (or religion in general) to fully comprehend the metaphors and ideas that were present in A Serious Man.  What I do know is that the movie made me think and question many different things, and that’s something that I come to expect out of every movie the Coen brothers make. 

Rating:  9/10

Movie Review: Mr. Brooks (2007)

Kevin Costner has been accused in the past of being stiff and bland as an actor in roles where he isn’t playing an athlete.  Although the movie itself is riddled with holes and shaky logic, Mr. Brooks proves to be an ample showcase of Costner’s acting talents and is, overall, an enjoyable movie.

Costner plays Earl Brooks, Portland’s “Man of the Year,” business owner, and loving husband/father.  He also has a sinister alter ego, nicknamed Marshall, who drives Brooks to kill random people for what appears to be pure psycho-sexual thrills.  Instead of having Costner stand around and talk to himself, however, Marshall is played by the wonderfully creepy William Hurt, and although he appears everywhere, he is merely a physical representation of Brooks’ inner demons.

Mr. Brooks works because of the amazing chemistry between Costner and Hurt.  Costner has to play the restrained family man who just happens to also be a serial killer, which allows him to harness his “blandness” and, with just a slight tweak, turn it into a spot-on portrayal of an amazingly successful person who has to juggle his commitments to his family and business and his murderous impulses.  Hurt, who is often called upon to play someone with a screw or two loose, provides as expected and seems like the perfect person to play Marshall.  Together, Brooks and Marshall scheme, converse, and even argue like old friends.  It’s a testament to both actors’ abilities that they took a somewhat flimsy script and made it both believable and intriguing.
It’s a shame that the same can’t be said of the other performances in the movie.  Demi Moore plays Tracy Atwood, a stereotypical police detective, and even does that somewhat poorly.  I’ve never been a fan of Moore as an actress, and she doe absolutely nothing in Mr. Brooks to change my mind.  Meanwhile, Dane Cook plays “Mr. Smith,” an amateur photographer who witnesses one of Mr. Brooks’ murders and ends up trying to become Brooks’ friend and protégé.  Much like Moore, I’ve never been a fan of Cook’s previous movie roles (or his stand-up comedy, for that matter), but he does a serviceable job bringing a level of compassion and energy to Mr. Smith.

What’s most baffling about Mr. Brooks is the way the story is sequenced.  The strongest (and, coincidentally, most disturbing) scenes of the movie happen in the first hour, while the second hour is spent trying to wrap up the main story and the multiple side plots.  It ends up being a case of having too many storylines for a two-hour movie, and if one of the sub-plots had been axed from the final product Mr. Brooks would probably have been a great film.  Although it’s tough to decide which subplot lends the least to the movie, my vote is the storyline involving Brooks’ daughter.  Every scene with his daughter stalls the momentum of the movie, and the movie would still feel complete without it.  As much as I dislike the Moore’s police detective storyline, it’s necessary to develop a possible antagonist for Brooks, and thus much more difficult to cut from the movie and have it still feel cohesive.

Even with all of these problems, however, Mr. Brooks is a fairly enjoyable movie.  The directing and cinematography do an effective job of building genuine tension, and rarely rely on things jumping out at the viewer.  The movie is dark but glossy, which really seems to fit in well with Brooks’ personality.  The combined effect of Costner and Hurt’s amazing acting with effective directing rises Mr. Brooks a level above the dime-a-dozen thrillers that come to theaters every week, and although it isn’t a classic, it’s at least a fun ride.

Rating:  7/10