It was a dark filled room and the glow from our TV shot toward us like we were the bullseye on a round red striped target. With a huge boom from our sound system, A Serious Man started with a woman tending the soup in the old country. Then a dead man and a re-deadening. Lots of ominous looks and that was supposed to be the setup to the upcoming story. It totally lost me.
But okay… it must get better. Boom. Black. Boom. The opening credits and boom, a strange little man who apparently is smart goes into his own discovery journey and it is more strange. I have to give it to Michael Stuhlbarg, who I am sorry to say, I had not crossed paths with before… at least not that I recall. He plays Larry and his performance saves this movie from disaster in my humble opinion. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that without his stellar execution of this multi-faceted character, few people would even want to watch it past the first five minutes. I thought it got off to a poor start and spiraled downhill after that.
Yes, there were a handful of good scenes, but the whole script left me wanting. Larry was played, if that's a story, and if so, where is the story. Larry is a character who doesn't seem to fit the litigious society of today. He is lame, ignorant and pathetic. Not exactly the message I enjoy seeing. His wife, played by Sari Lennick doesn't come across as believable.
Her character's role along with the slow-speaking Cy simply annoyed me. Their interchange was boring. The whole dynamic between these three characters wasn't even good enough to feel sorry for them.
I guess some call this style of movie, a dark comedy, but I call it lacking meaning and an ending. It's as if the writer decided to write a little story about marriage, faith, family and infidelity. He paid no attention to the beginning or the end. The middle was more like a Christmas Carol where three rabbis guide larry through his struggle like the three ghosts did. But they spewed off a bunch of nonsensical dialog. Maybe that was supposed to be humor. I just found it empty.
Why on earth would anybody want to waste time on a movie that was void of any story. Sure, there are snippits of poor Larry's frustrations, but where is the story. What was I supposed to come away with after watching this flick? Is it right to treat me, the audience, like an idiot.
The serious nature of this man called Larry is not that he's serious, but more that he's a pushover. A complete bonehead who lets his wife, his kids, his so-called friend and even 3 rabbis who are supposed to answer his call for help… vomit up bad behavior. Worse. Larry just accepts the situation presented to him by these "loved ones" and relents. Is that realistic? It must be some kind of dark humor that goes over my head. I think some call it dark humor so they can get away with making a bad movie. But incredible as it is, this film does make a feeble attempt to make the story interesting.
Enter the nude sunbathing neighbor lady, the bubba neighbor who encroaches on Larry's property and Larry's sickly brother and you've got a bubbling stew that would add a degree of interest, except for the fact that there's no connection. The script just lays these characters out there like puzzle pieces on a an ole brown card table and then leaves them there -- in no man's land. Yes, it adds to Larry's challenges, but nothing happens. They appear with a tease of a side story, but then... Nothing. Air.
What really annoys me is a scene like the one in the lawyer's conference room where the apparent attorney partner enters, sits down and says nothing. There's some mention that he's found something in relation to Larry's neighbor property line issue, but that goes no where. It's on. It's off. It's gone.
I must be ignorant to think that my coin and my time are worth more than an empty movie that leaves me shaking my head and not in a good way.
I didn't not like anything about this movie, except the excellent performance by Michael Stuhlbarg in the role of Larry. But as great as he was, it did not save this film. The opening sequence was weird and the end was missing.
What could these movie-makers have been thinking?
