A Serious Man? GMAFB.
Every once in a while I decide to get serious. Seriously. My husband and I watched the above award-winning movie made by the Coen brothers last night. Normally I prefer not to tackle movie reviews, but here goes. This is a case of a seriously over-rated move. As in the emperor is wearing no clothes. Yes, they got the cars right and the clothes right and they even got the hair right for the mid to late 1960s. That’s about it. It reminded me a bit of Grand Torino - which I absolutely loved - where you had some seriously flawed and stereotyped characters but as that movie unfolded there was character growth and movement and redemption.
The overarching theme of A Serious Man is story of Job and his suffering for no reason - the main character, a Conservative Jew, suffers one existential crisis after another from which there is no relief, no guidance and not a single shred of hope - oh, maybe at the end there is a single shred of hope, but it’s ripped from his hands in the very next instance. There is no character with whom I can identify, and I’m Jewish and grew up in the Midwest and my husband grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota - where the movie takes place. He couldn’t identify with the movie either. He watched, open-mouthed, appalled. Every Jew acts like the worst stereotype of a Jew a Jew-hater can imagine, in addition, there is the non-Jewish (goyish) blond neighbor who hunts, mows his lawn incessantly and plays baseball with his kid - as if Jews don’t play baseball? There’s a secular Jewish woman who acts as neighborhood temptress and pot smoker. We watch unsympathetic rabbis mouthing meaningless platitudes…blech. If a nonJewish director made a movie like this, he’d be castigated, but because the Coen brothers are Jewish, they can get away with it.
In a nutshell, they boil Judaism down to bubbemeitzes - old grandmothers’ tales that have no meaning in today’s world…and never did. The movie hits you in the face with the fact that the movie makers view the religion as nothing more than Eastern European superstitious nonsense. It’s a religious polemic - or perhaps a secular polemic and worse, the scenes don’t ring true. Back in 1967, kids didn’t say ‘fuck’ with any regularity and public extra-marital affairs were frowned upon to say the least. And what was with the woman thrown in the scene at Lake Harriet…Lake Calhoun…wearing the leg braces??? Are you serious, Coen brothers? I’ve always loved your quirky movies but you seriously lost me with this one. The movie was seriously depressing and devoid of any redeeming value, except perhaps as a venue for the writers/directors to express their serious dislike of their upbringing in St. Louis Park, but if so, it’s the wrong era. They are younger than the characters portrayed. Look, I have my own issues with Judaism and questions about its attempts to remain relevant in the modern world, but you can’t boil down nearly 6000 years of history to a Dybbuk story. Well…I suppose you can seriously try.
In other news - It’s burkini weather - yes, I seriously own one - minus the hair cover and the skirt. Mine’s blue and I love it! Here’s a cute green burkini:
Genella deGrey has a new release out today - Love Divine.
Here’s the buy link: http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=734
Blurb: In the Highlands of Britannia, Aslyn, was raised a Druid by her late mother. Rome has returned, but instead of a legion of solders, a single man comes to the little village of Cardamon Long, peddling a new Roman god.
Ryus Jorian was sent on a mission for the new religion. But instead of a cave of barbaric souls in need of saving, he finds an intelligent, beautiful, hedonistic distraction, who makes him question the very reason for his journey.
Happy sales, Genella!
