A Serious Man (2009)

Dark is a word you could use to describe this film; cynical is another. Comedic, maybe. They are all appropriate expressions of probably what is the Coen's most curious recent work to date. It's not fanciful like Raising Arizona (1987) or The Big Lebowski (1998), but its less cynical then No Country For Old Men (2007) and less comedic then Fargo (1996).

The movie is, at its bare bones, an adaptation of the Book of Job, and if you don't know that story, read it and find out what horrible things God will do to you to make you prove your fate. Much the same happens here, as Larry Gobnik's (Michael Stuhlbarg) life begins to spiral out of control, beginning with his wife asking for a divorce, and the incessant arrogance of everyone around him. He seeks help from three rabbis, who offer some interesting, but useless, insight.

You'll leave the movie with mixed emotions on it, I guarantee it, but this movie is meticulously and somewhat ingeniously constructed so that a single viewing, I think, may not be enough to really take in and understand all the movie has to offer and is trying to say. Most of the Coen's movies are about people who get in bad situations and things deteriorate until it ends badly for them. In Fargo, Jerry Lundegaard (a decidedly unsympathetic character) sinks deeper and deeper into a quagmire of his ransom, and in No Country For Old Men (2007), Llewelyn Moss continues playing his cat-and-mouse game with the unstoppable Anton Chigurh.

Here, however, is a man who you assume has done the best with his life and who really doesn't deserve to undergo the unraveling chaos his life is hurled into. Larry is the kind of man who doesn't stand up for himself, who lets others wash over him, as his wife begins discussing marrying an older man, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). Sy is the kind of man much akin to Peter Sarsgaard's character in An Education (2009); though not good looking, he is charming and reassuring, while being a complete slimebag underneath it all.

You almost forget there is a ten-minute opening sequence which tells the story of a Jewish man and his wife on a cold winter night encounter what she believes to be a Dybbuk, which, Wikipedia helpfully explains, is a soul that possesses someone's body, a soul that did not fulfill their life's purpose. Though the question is left unanswered: was this man really a Dybbuk?

I will not pretend to know what the opening is supposed to mean, but I have my theory: it lays out the rest of the movie to come, and the movie's eventual sudden ending. But maybe I'm completely off base on this one, and will delve into the many theories other's may have on IMDb or other message boards (sometimes IMDb message boards can be enlightening, sometimes they can be a sad example of what our country has come to).

The technical aspects of this movie are superb, from Roger Deakins' Cinematography to Roderick Jaynes' editing. The movie constructs a few terrific intercut sequences, paralleling either a doctor check-up and a Yiddish lesson, or two simultaneous car crashes, to the movie's powerful and sudden ending.

I really look forward to seeing this movie again. I think it is a fair step up from Joel & Ethan's previous venture, Burn After Reading (2008) which I feel is just an excuse for a slideshow of big stars to be in the same movie, doing ridiculous things. No, this movie is not gut-bustingly funny, but it lingers with you, and is a movie you will enjoy discussing and pondering. I really look forward to seeing it again.

World's Greatest Dad (2009)

To put it lightly, World’s Greatest Dad may be one of the most shocking things I have every seen. Not shocking in a “look at how much torture I can throw your way,” but in a “people really act like this” kind of way.

Robin Williams, in his best role for quite some time, plays Lance Clayton, a poetry high school teacher whose course is suffering, whose girlfriend keeps blowing him off, and whose son is the greatest monster to walk the earth (Daryl Sabara, no longer a cute Spy Kid). When tragedy strikes, Lance somehow finds it is the greatest thing that every happened to him.

I don’t want to talk too much about this film because that would give away so much of what makes it so special. In the last month we have had some great trailers, for movies like District 9, Inglourious Basterds, and In the Loop which intrigue you but don’t tell you too much about the film. World’s Greatest Dad has another spectacular trailer that undersells the movie. It’s probably the blackest comedy I’ve ever seen.

I do feel the movie gets carried away in its second half, blowing everything to its biggest possible extreme, but it also feels strangely authentic. I urge those who haven’t seen the movie to stop reading and go see it now, for I fear cannot continue without spoiling the best parts of the film.

The movie is a great study in our morbid fascination with the dead, especially when death comes unexpectedly. In the worst people you remember the best parts about them, and lay them to rest in the most delicate and painless way possible. This movie feels like writer and director Bobcat Goldthwait reacted so strongly to the public’s reaction to Michael Jackson’s sudden death that he went out and made this movie. It has a certain timely and timeless quality about it.

When Michael Jackson died, everyone was stunned, because he was only 50. Farrah Fawcett’s death earlier that day came with smaller impact because it was known she would die, but people didn’t focus on someone who was probably a genuinely nice person, and instead focused on the pre-white Michael Jackson. From recent years until his death, the public hated Jackson, and when he died, he was our hero.

The same applies to this movie. It is so twisted, so morbid, yet so true. The movie is set in Seattle, but you would only know that if you were a Seattleite. The movie never tells you, but one wonders if there is some deliberation in setting it there. Williams walks out of the Guild 45^th and stares at a magazine stand downtown. Yet this made me happy, made me feel like there was an extra something in this movie for me. There are no shots of the Space Needle or of downtown at large, and the High School is no school I know of. But it is an interesting, deft touch.

People will go to see this maybe expecting a Disney comedy. When I first saw the poster, that’s what crossed my mind. This is a movie you are either totally for or really against, but no matter where you stand on the quality of the movie, you cannot dispute its important message about our culture and our times.