A Serious Man [HD]

Schrodinger's cat and the curse of free will - A serious analysis
[This is an attempt to interpret the complex narrative of the movie. Please read this *after* you've watched the movie - else skip to the last line :)]

Larry Gopnik is a professor of physics who teaches his students about 'Schrodinger's Cat' - the idea that the fate of an entity remains undefined right until the moment an agent acts and 'collapses the wave function,' so to speak. Gopnik believes that the story of the cat serves no purpose other than to illustrate a mathematical truth - and yet, strangely enough, Gopnik's human fate is no less uncertain and contingent than that of Schrodinger's hypothetical cat. For example, the very moment Gopnik "acts" to accept a bribe and pass his Korean student, his telephone rings, and he receives ominous news from his doctor. By this time, the strange causalities in the movie will have compelled us to ask if Gopnik's phone would have rung had he chosen differently. As Gopnik comes to realize, the "truth" of mathematics and numbers -...

Haym Salomon Airplane
What makes this wry comedy special isn't the humour. Although you'll have a smile on your face much of the time (certainly not at the ending), there were only a couple of laugh out loud moments. Rather, it's the thought-provoking and stimulating storyline about a Jewish college professor, Larry Gopnik, whose life seems to be unraveling, and who seeks spiritual guidance in vain.

His wife is leaving him for another man. His psychologically impaired brother has moved in, stirring up even more domestic turmoil. He is up for tenure but someone has been sending anonymous letters of complaint about him to university officials. He has to deal with a difficult Korean student, and the student's father, who offer to bribe him in exchange for a passing grade. And he has money problems.

Gopnik comes across as something of a pathetic sap who could solve some of his problems by just standing up for himself, but his ultimate fate is apparently beyond his control. The...

Absolute masterpiece
Yes, it's not for everyone. A strong grasp of both Jewish tradition and quantum physics would do the potential viewer well in getting the absolute most out of the film. But, as someone who is by no means an expert in either area, this one hit me on quite a base level in its unflinching and very true-to-life depiction of a man's life coming apart at the seams and all the existential angst that ensues. The wonderful thing is, A Serious Man is not only deeply resonant and moving, but quite hilarious as well- in that dark, dark way that may be just a little too dark for some.

The Coens have always caught some flack for their supposed misanthropic elitism; or, in other words, what has been seen by some critics as a sort of contemptuous mocking of the characters they depict onscreen, the two directors never fully granting their filmic creations emotional sympathy. If it was previously easy to debunk this claim, it is now, with A Serious Man, a piece of cake. Has there been a...

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