Dan Mooney

I walked out of the theatre with my friend, long faces, blank looks, scratching our heads. The man who ripped our tickets saw us headed out and asked, “You just saw A Serious Man, didn’t you?”

Yes, we had.

I didn’t know what the hell to make of what I’d just seen. I thought I’d enjoyed it, more than I didn’t. I know I laughed a bunch of times. But I wasn’t sure that I’d enjoyed it, and I wasn’t sure how to judge the movie. I do know I thought and talked about it a lot that night, and the next day. Something must have worked. I also know that the movie’s main character suffers one disappointment after another, of varying levels of severity, again and again until the movie ends. Watching it was pretty pitiful, and it took reflection to understand what else might have been going on.

I first began to wrap my head around this movie when I thought of it as the Coen Brothers’ “Woody Allen movie.” Maybe a blunt comparison, but a helpful one for me. Broadly, the protoganist is familiar: Jewish, professional, bespectacled, and frustrated that despite his intelligence, he can’t figure life out better than he does. The major difference is that the Woody Allen persona approaches life’s absurdities, or defends himself from them, with humor – and that Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is, well, a serious man.

The short preamble (that paves the way for the Tarantinoesque opening credits) offers a morality tale and a quote, both suggesting to approach life simply, to accept things as they are, and that there’s a benefit to this practicality. That view is held by Professor Gopnik, given his restrained reactions to the many major life-altering situations he’s presented with. In the end these stresses do add up, to exactly how much is only implied. He’s affected, but he’s not. He’s stoic and accepting of his fate. Enter my own frustration: Is this a sign of weakness, or of strength? Is he a doormat, or just forthright? Is he to be respected or ridiculed? We see that he’s probably happiest in his dream sequences, when he succumbs to the temptation to do and think things that either his morality or his manners won’t normally let him. It’s easy to see him as passive and ineffectual, and therefore unsympathetic, and painful to watch. That was my first take. But it’s then beneficial to consider the alternative, to admire his persistence, and to focus instead not on the quickness or severity of his reactions, but on his methodology.

And his methodology is: taking the long view, operating at a cool remove, and asking men of authority – and some women – for their advice. Rabbis (each older and wiser than the previous), lawyers, his boss at work, these are some of the people who can help Larry Gopnik when he’s not in a position to help himself. He’s at their mercy, and there’s a measure of strength in that vulnerability and openness. So despite his reluctance to, say, fight back mercilessly at those who threaten him, his curiosity and his faith redeem him to a certain extent. If I didn’t consider these traits, I’d have easily dismissed the guy, and thought much less of his story. But certain things came into focus for me, after the fact, and I was satisfied enough, as Larry seems to be, to puzzle them over without necessarily figuring them out.

3 stars

I saw Avatar last week, and judging by the dollars that continue to pile up, I’m not the only one who didn’t rush out opening weekend.

Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am surprised it’s done anywhere near as well as it has. Having avoided the trailer, I saw only a few seconds of footage here and there, and what I saw didn’t impress me. Thought it would be another manufactured tentpole hit without much behind it. Thought Cameron’s ego would have swallowed his talent whole leaving nothing but some blue creatures patrolling around.

Wrong! Happily wrong.

I was absolutely impressed by Avatar. Just incredible. The kind of revolutionary moviewatching experience that doesn’t happen often. Jurassic Park was like that, and I saw a lot of that movie in this one. I also saw in it A Bug’s Life (blue creatures going about their lives around a huge tree), The Lion King (the learning montages, general forest revelry) and The Matrix (simultaneous levels of experience, one arguably as real as the other, but not quite). I did see it in 3D, which is the way to see it, but I didn’t see it in IMAX, which is just too much screen for me.

I do agree with the idea I’ve heard that James Cameron should win Best Director honors at the Academy Awards. Even if there are better movies out there, and I think there are, he’s the MVP for his project, having done more to realize more. Nothing against Tarantino, who made a wonderful movie (and killed Hitler), but my vote would go to Cameron.

It’s not all gravy, though. The shortcomings of his movie are obvious and numerous. Great directing, lackluster writing: flat jokes, dull dialogue, bad acting. Even Sigourney Weaver, as Grace in human form, can’t act her way past what’s been written for her. Giovanni Ribisi’s Jeremy Piven impression was adequate, since all he had to do was announce himself as a bad guy, and then tread water. Sam Worthington (ably understudied by Sean Avery) was earnest enough. (In the race between Ribisi’s Parker and Oliver Platt’s Mr. Anheuser from 2012, Platt’s character wins, for having more opportunity to be comic-book crazy. A separate race between Anheuser and the mother’s boyfriend in Rookie of the Year is too close to call.)

I was as pleased as hell to read the interview with James Cameron in Entertainment Weekly a couple of weeks back, when Cameron was up-front with his plain desire to make a movie that a lot of people would pay money to see. He succeeded, but he didn’t sell anyone short, and he didn’t make a movie that appealed to a lowest common denominator. It’s only broad insofar as it’s appealing to just about everyone who likes things that are fantastic and cool-looking. With audiences continuing to splinter and smaller films getting more recognition and praise, finally there’s a movie that brings moviegoers together again, surrending to the spectacle. If ever there were a movie to see in a theatre, this is it.

Oh, you’ve seen it already?

Oh, okay, then let’s continue with the discussion.

One odd question to start, one that kind of bothered me: When Sully finds his banshee – the one he has to tie up, get on the ground, and make his extremely personal connection with – he’s not raping that poor creature, in one way or another?

I must say I enjoyed the fight at the very end, between Jake Sully as a Na’vi and Colonel Quaritch in his robot suit from The Matrix Revolutions, for a couple of reasons. I like that each of the participants is in disguise, hiding behind technology somehow. It levels the playing field by making each rather super-human, but also calls attention to the already well-hammered conflict of the movie between, say, destructive technology and endangered biological life forms. I was also reminded of the fight between King Kong and the T-Rex in the original King Kong, in the forest, the film itself a landmark of visual effects.

I also liked a couple of moments with masks, playing up the title. When Grace dies after the transfusion doesn’t work, her mask is summarily taken off, echoing the shedding of her body by her soul. And, near the end when Neytiri finds Sully in the trailer struggling for air, she’s quick to put his mask on. It’s certainly to help him survive, but I think also because she’s used to seeing him in disguise, in another form. His “nakedness” is alarming. She’s in love with his soul, or whatever makes him who he is, but his human form at that point in their relationships doesn’t seem his natural state. That leads to the final switcheroo, the eyes opening, the percussion building, and… a comically cheesy end credits song. Terrible.

I am glad the parable moved on from being an allegory about the Middle East and oil and indigenous peoples to addressing the larger, worldly issue of, y’know, respecting our planet for the powerful and living creature she is. For a simplistic story on which to hang beautiful, vivid effects, there are worse choices for a moral. Sugar helps the medicine go down, anyway.

3.5 stars