For those of us looking for answers in cinema, “A Serious Man” may seem like a cruel joke. On the other hand, the Coen Brother’s film might offer the only real comfort one can get from great art: the certainty that we are not alone, that others share our existential malaise

A SERIOUS MAN: An Ethical Life

At first glance, the film has a deceivingly simple plot: upon close examination, however, it acquires the level of a modern allegory of Job’s parable, a Jewish fable or—more secularly—an illustration of German philosopher Friedrich Hegel’s “Paradox of theWill.”  

“A Serious Man” begins with a quote from a medieval French rabbi that draws upon the teachings of Job’s parable: “Take with humility everything that happens to you.” Located in Minnesota in 1967, the movie written and directed by Ethan and Joel Coen, reveals like so many other films and television programs in vogue (“Revolutionary Road,” “Mad Men”), the sinister side of the seemingly peaceful and happy suburbs of the epoch. The only difference is that the action does not focus on a “typical” American family, but a Jewish one.

Visually, the palette has the bright colors associated with the time, but the moral landscape is gray. The main character,LarryGopnik (MichaelStuhlbarg) is a University Physics professor that counts on the perfect order of mathematics in the classroom, but  his real life is chaos. Gopnik’s wife becomes the lover of his best friend and wants a divorce; an abusive neighbor is taking-up space from his backyard; his children are stealing from him; his health is failing, and he might not get tenure. 

According to Hegel, property is the objective manifestation of our freedom, so when those boundaries are violated, we lose more than physical objects.   In Gopnik’s case his freedom is being contested in every aspect of his life.  In Hegel’s “Paradox of theWill,” when man is stripped of all possessions, his last instance for freedom is an ethical life. The only will left for man in such a case is his moral sense, the one thing nobody can take away from him, the one thing he can completely own.

However, to lead an ethical life one needs to close the gap between desires and reality. That can be achieved through moral explanations that help to reconcile both. The community plays an important part in providing responses to this existential frustration. Cultural practices are guidelines containing objective moral intentions of ethical life. But as much as Gopnik looks in his family and community, he does not find the support he needs to come to terms with what is happening to him, to lead the “good” life.  As a Jew, Gopnik is outside the culture in which he lives, the conservative United States of the 1960’s, , so he seeks another frame of reference (as advised by a friend of his): the ancient wisdom of Judaism. Gopnik consults a series of rabbis who try to comfort him through the narration of parables. They all seem to point to a great truth, to a great source of wisdom, but—to Gopnik’s increasing dismay—they ultimately reveal nothing. The film suggests several answers for those who want to find them. For instance, Gopnik explains to his students that the thing about physics “Uncertainty Principle” is that even if you do not understand its rules, you are ultimately  responsible for the result.

However, Gopnik cannot apply what he teaches, so he ends up as Job, passively accepting the ills that befall him. Following the paradigm of Hegel, ” the weakness of the moral vision is tragedy,”  and Gopnik is a tragic man. Given that it is the Coen Brother, the movie is a comedy and not a tragedy as it could be. In fact, the film itself could be the last joke, a parable without meaning that reveals not only a community and a God indifferent to pain, but also a director and a writer indifferent to the public’s expectations.  Although the film is focused on a specifically Jewish worldview, it reflects deep existential questions that are—or should be—intriguing to all.