A Serious Man (2009)
By Mitch Wiley
A Serious Man (2009) — Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen
“What’s going on?”
This phrase is uttered what seems like countless times, mostly by the film’s protagonist, Larry Gopnik. Larry is a private school physics professor in 1967 Minnesota. It’s also a line likely uttered by the viewer at various points in the film. A Serious Man is a special film for me, one that has undergone a personal “critical re-evaluation.” Movies are fluid, more alchemy than mathematics, to borrow a phrase from a friend. Many films demand repeat viewings in order to catch up to their wavelength, pace, meaning, or depth. My initial viewing of A Serious Man left me frustrated by the lack of resolution and an abundance of lingering questions. “What’s going on?”
On the surface, A Serious Man is a comedy about a modern-day Old Testament character (i.e. Job) who is overwhelmed by circumstances out of his control that operates like a snowball rolling downhill. The Old Testament is also a major focus of the film as Larry is devoutly Jewish working in a Jewish school and meeting with a trio of Rabbis. There is even a scene of his son (high on pot) performing his bar mitzvah. The film is explicitly concerned with the Old Testament religion while functioning itself like a Biblical parable. Beneath the surface, this is an exploration of not only religion and theology but existentialism itself. It is a theodicy of sorts.
So what is going on? To understand the message of the film, it’s first important to understand the men behind the script and camera—the Coen brothers. Minnesota-raised Jews during the 1960s themselves, they are certainly drawing on their own personal experience, but the film can also be understood as a philosophical thesis of their filmography. They have made eighteen feature-length films in their thirty-plus-year careers. Their signature touch is tackling existential philosophy with black comedy, historical settings, and quirky characters. From cult hits like Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski to Oscar-nominated hits like Fargo and No Country for Old Men, one of the uniting motifs of their canon is order and chaos. Larry’s character is seeking to make sense of the chaos and suffering in his own life. He is a physics teacher and mathematic precision is his passion, as well as his vocation. His brother, a deadbeat gambler, is in the process of creating a “Mentaculus,” an item designed to predict likely outcomes. The Mentaculus, scribbled into a notebook in a way that looks like it’s anything but order, mirrors an image from the film in which Larry stands in front of a large classroom blackboard, filled with numbers, letters, and figures. Chaos. And Larry, through physics, creates order; more importantly, he creates answers.
Larry Gopnik’s classroom
Arthur Gopnik’s Mentaculus Journal
In the face of Larry’s increasing suffering (which includes divorce, questions of employment, a wrecked car, an arrested brother, and blackmail), Larry asks the most natural question… “why?” As a hospital chaplain, I’m often asked this question by both patients and family members staring at the bleakness of human existence square in the face. Larry attempts to meet three Rabbis for an answer. The first gives him only platitudes of a changed perspective. The second tells him to not ask questions because there are no answers. The third simply shuts the door in his face, symbolic of the silence of God himself. Larry asks exasperated, “Why does (God) make us feel the questions if He isn’t going to give us the answers?” In another scene with a failing student, Larry says of the Uncertainty Principle, “It proves we can't ever really know... what's going on. So it shouldn't bother you. Not being able to figure anything out. Although you will be responsible for this on the mid-term.” Larry is reflecting on a lecture for his physics class, while unknowingly giving the Coen brothers’ answer. We have the questions of suffering with little answers. We must, however, endure the suffering. The film’s message is bleak, perhaps Nihilistic, though not without some nuggets of wisdom.
Evangelical Christianity, of which I am an adherent, does not do well with questions, doubts, and uncertainty. It is a branch of Christianity intent on assurance, black and white answers, and few doubts. This, however, is not the experience of Job, David, the Psalmists, Elijah, even Jesus himself. The Bible presents honest people who love God and feel the heat of suffering and unanswered questions. There must be room for doubts and uncertainly. To deny this is to give someone unreasonable expectations. It is asking for a crisis of faith. The answers do not always come. They may never come. To quote a character from the film, “Embrace the mystery.”