Review of A Serious Man (2009) by Archibald T — 22 Mar 2011

Larry Gopnik is a spineless man. Not a serious one. Not like Sy Ableman. Now he was a serious man.The film opens with a simple message. We then follow a man who lives in a village. This is some years ago.

It's Polish as is he and his wife. He enters his home to tell his wife that a man helped him after he had trouble with the cart. The wheel fell off. Lucky for him another man arrived. It's someone his wife knows: Traitle Groshkover! She is not surprised.

"God has cursed us" she tells him. As it turns out, her husband was talking to dybbuk. In Jewish folklore a dybbuk is a malicious, or benevolent possessing spirit believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person.

(Thanks Wikipedia).This is troubling and even more so when her husband invited the man over for soup. Now her husband is a rational man, not a serious one, so believing his wife about the dybbuk is relevant when she stabs it in the chest.

We can not be certain about her claims or to be certain about what is to follow. As Groshkover, or dybbuk, stumbles into the snowy night both husband and wife are split: "What have you done?! We are ruined" he tells her.

"No," she says. "Blessed is the Lord. Good riddance to evil."Flash forward to 1967 where the beginning of Larry's life is put to the test in a series of unfortunate events. He has a son, Danny whose own troubles slightly parallels Larry's.

Judith is Larry's wife and she informs that she needs a divorce so she can marry Sy Ableman. To top it all off, the head of the tenure committee have been receiving letters inform them not to give Larry tenure.

Also there's a Korean student who tries to bribe Larry for a passing grade and Larry may face a defamation lawsuit from the students father for not accepting the money, his mathematical genius, or gambling/gay, of a brother lives with them, his son's bar mitzvah, the divorce proceedings, his daughter always washing her hair, Sy's sudden death, the naked woman next door and the three rabbi's.

What's the meaning to all of this madness? Such a silly question. I'll leave it to Larry when he meets the First Rabbi. It's very interesting, even funny, how the first rabbi compares God to a parking lot, but in some ways that later becomes metaphorical in the film.

Now the Second Rabbi has an intriguing story. One that is set to a Jimi Hendrix tune. It's about how Dr. Sussman stumbled upon markings inside a Goy's Teeth. Hebrew Letters to be exact that read: "Help Me.

Save Me." This story pretty much sums up the film as a whole.Now the third rabbi, Marshak, he unfortunately can't be reached by Larry, but his Son, Danny, is able to since Marshak passes off wisdom now to those who have gone through their bar mitzvah's.

It also leads Danny to retrieving his radio which was taken by a teacher early on in the film.This film is a complete mystery. A lot like life. Questions are never answered, especially when the characters themselves never get an answer to any of the questions they ask.

However, I am left with an interesting theory about the ending. Their was mentioning about Schrodinger?s paradox. About whether or not the cat is dead or not dead. It's shown VERY briefly with Larry talking about it, but I think it sums up the ending (even more so does the quote at the beginning of the film).

It's paradoxical, but it's also uncertain. A lot like life. That's all I gotta say.