If this pandemic has proven anything, it’s that there’s no rational way to respond to an irrational situation. No matter how much we think we can govern and compartmentalize our own lives amid a global health crisis, nature has cunning, unpredictable ways of destroying our attempts to survive. Just when we think we’re moving forward, something beyond our control seems to set us 15 steps backward.
This existential tension between free will and determinism not only is the root of the human experience, but also of the Jewish experience. We are constantly asking questions about life that don’t always lead to finite or satisfying answers, creating a crushing, paradoxical cycle of philosophical curiosity and continual spiritual frustration. Whenever I have trouble parsing through the volatile mess of our world, I look to Joel and Ethan Coen’s 2009 sublime satire, “A Serious Man,” for guidance and comfort.
Released 11 years ago this month, “A Serious Man” remains a very timely, very Jewish tragicomedy that articulates the impossibility of certainty in an incoherent and morally bankrupt society. Although such a bleak theme may be too morbid for some to stomach, “A Serious Man” offers profound insights about faith and introspection that give clarity to the absurd series of life events to which we’re bound.
A TWENTIETH-CENTURY SHLEMIEL
“A Serious Man” begins with a Rashi quote, “Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you,” and a mysterious prologue set in a 19th-century shtetl during a snowstorm. Jewish husband Velvel (played by Allen Lewis Rickman) tells his wife, Dora (Yelena Shmulenson), that he invited a scholar named Reb Groshkover over for soup. Dora asserts Groshkover (Fyvush Finkel) passed away three years before and the man Velvel encountered was a dybbuk. According to Jewish folklore, a dybbuk is a malevolent spirit that, if it enters a Jewish house, means bad luck for the homeowner’s lineage.
But Groshkover does arrive, and he dismisses Dora’s accusation. Velvel apologizes on Dora’s behalf, but she is unconvinced and impales Groshkover with an icepick. Outraged and bleeding, Groshkover initially seems immune to Dora’s attack but quickly falls ill and exits the home into the snowy abyss. Although the opening acts as a self-contained story and is never referenced again in the film, Velvel’s inability to confront or even recognize his own ineptness suggests that we all have our blind spots, no matter how rational and righteous we think we are. It also sets an ominous precedent for what’s to come.
“A Serious Man” subsequently shifts to 100 years later, to 1960s Minnesota. We meet Jewish physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), whose humdrum life suddenly crumbles before his eyes. His spouse, Judith (Sari Lennick), wants a divorce so she can marry charismatic widower Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed); one of Larry’s students bribes him to change a failing grade; his chances of getting tenure are threatened by anonymous hate mail; his racist next-door neighbor cuts the grass on his property; his lonely brother Arthur (Richard Kind) suffers from a gambling problem and gets in trouble with the law. As this chain of dilemmas escalates to the point of utter ludicrousness, Larry becomes more and more tormented with anguish and confusion about what to do.
Like Velvel, Larry is a classic example of a shlemiel, a common archetype in Jewish storytelling that translates to “incompetent fool” in Yiddish. A shlemiel often falls into unfortunate situations and, unlike a shmuck, cannot redeem himself, forever fettered to what he is. As a physics professor, the only way Larry can understand his environment is through rational thinking. But logic has its limits. He cannot use equations and mathematics to solve his very real — but also very strange — problems. Even when he does seek help, Larry balks at the idea that he deserves such misfortune, constantly repeating the line, “I haven’t done anything!”
Turning to his faith to extinguish his anxieties, Larry consults two rabbis at his synagogue. The first, fresh-faced Rabbi Ginsler (Simon Helberg), is well-meaning but naive. He advises Larry to simply change his perspective, using vague metaphors to justify his suggestion. The second, more experienced Rabbi Nachtner (George Wyner) tells Larry a compelling parable with no resolution. The rabbi claims the ending of the parable ultimately is insignificant, leaving Larry even more lost than before. He tries seeing the senior Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandell), but Marshak’s apparent unavailability leads Larry to a dead end.
These scenes are funny on their own, but they also illuminate the occasional hollowness of American Judaism. The rabbis are just as bewildered by life’s randomness as Larry but are less concerned about meditating on it. Instead of offering compassion or wisdom, they incorporate interpretive devices like clichéd analogies and convoluted allegories in their counsel.
While such a depiction may seem offensive and even contrary to practicing Jews, what the Coens communicate is not necessarily an indictment of organized religion in the modern age, but rather a symptom of a larger existential issue: Our world is becoming more inscrutable and, therefore, more alienating. Religion and storytelling may help us make sense of our lives, but considering Larry’s case, so-called universal truths can prove meaningless when unforeseen events threaten to disorient us.
DOING NOTHING
Employing their signature misanthropic, deadpan wit, the Coen brothers seem to delight in Larry’s series of predicaments, going so far as to portray his troubles through a macabre lens of schadenfreude. During a dream sequence, Ableman appears like the dybbuk from the prologue. He haunts Larry in a college lecture hall and questions Larry’s pragmatic worldview, before repeatedly bashing Larry’s head against a chalkboard, as if to physically shake him out of his misery. In another nightmare, Sy watches over Larry while Larry copulates with his hippie neighbor Mrs. Samsky (Amy Landecker). Even in his subconscious, Larry can’t escape the harrowing uncertainty that plagues his reality.
Watching Larry go through the humiliating, fruitless exercise of searching for meaning in his woes is equal parts hilarious and devastating, like witnessing a modern suburban retelling of the Book of Job. Larry’s journey captures our own primal urge for validation, our desire to confirm that life isn’t one great mystery, that problems always have solutions, and actions inevitably lead to consequences.
But life isn’t that simple. Problems will always provoke other problems that one solution cannot fix. And a lack of action can engender consequences, too. Larry believes he hasn’t “done anything,” but that is precisely the reason why he has ended up with such intense trouble. Doing nothing — and not seeing that you’re doing nothing — can be just as damaging as doing something.
SOMEBODY TO LOVE
Perhaps the most plausible answer to Larry’s issues exists within the film’s recurring motif of Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love.” The song appears multiple times in “A Serious Man,” often through the radio of Larry’s stoner son Danny (Aaron Wolff). The wailing, sonic psychedelia of “Somebody to Love” contrasts with Larry’s quiet, contented lifestyle and reflects the normalcy of his life coming undone. The song’s opening lyrics — “When the truth is found to be lies / And all the joy within you dies” — evoke Larry’s disappointment with his circumstances becoming increasingly more ambiguous and illogical.
But it’s the refrain “Don’t you want somebody to love?” that points to a potential understanding of Larry’s foibles: We can only ascertain true, tangible meaning in our lives through our relationships. We often fail to find purpose in the things we can’t control, such as the weather or sudden disruptions in our health. So, it’s probably best to search for it in the things we can control, like our connections with our loved ones and our individual contributions to society. Even Rabbi Marshak understands this, as he quotes “Somebody to Love” to Danny on the day of his bar mitzvah and tells him to “be a good boy.”
As someone who is obsessive and analytical about everything, I’m both reassured and unnerved by the Coens’ nihilism, the notion that life is a big cosmic joke, that nothing really means anything because we’re inevitably doomed, and that God laughs in our faces all the while. Given the unending cultural tumult of this year alone, trying to make sense of anything feels hopeless. We can try to contextualize our societal contagions or our own wrongdoings as much as possible, but that still might not be enough to alleviate our despair.
But I suppose that’s the point of A Serious Man: to approach the unsolvable puzzle of being alive with simplicity rather than constantly fixate on why bad things happen to us. There is sadness inherent in not knowing things, but there is also relief in not carrying the burden of asking unanswerable questions.
Ultimately, the film surmises that accepting the grand and incomprehensible mystery of existence and relishing in the fact that we can’t know or solve everything is the only way to really experience and grapple with whatever this life throws at us. In 2020, a year where truly nothing is foreseeable, that’s certainly a lesson we should take to heart.
Sam Rosenberg, a University of Michigan alumnus, is a screenwriter and freelance writer.
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