May I unhelp you?
Jonathan Keifer: Please, oh please, do your homework before writing your review next time [“Dude, where are the Coen bros?” November 3]. A Serious Man is an interpretation of the Book of Job. While it may also have some personal Coen brother touches, it is just about as far from anti-semitic as possible. The foundation of the movie, as with Job’s story, is about inexplicable suffering. Undeserved suffering. Suffering that one experiences, even when one is innocent. It is not about “children torturing small animals.” Rather, this story was intended as an explanation that 1. suffering does not always exist as a consequence of something you have done—meaning sometimes innocent people suffer; 2. what seems like suffering at first may eventually turn out to be an essential component of your life/journey/etc.; 3. ultimately this experience is one you go through alone. The three rabbis, like Job’s three rabbis, are supposed to be completely unhelpful. In Job’s story and in A Serious Man the rabbis do offer some good advice, but sadly for our main character, it is completely unrelated to his issues, and it lacks compassion.
Indeed, in the book of Job, the theory of justice at the time was that suffering is a direct result of committing a sin. Therefore, good people do not suffer, wicked people do. Job’s story questions that theory.
That the Coen brothers can make this movie both humorous and full of pathos is a triumph. I suggest you read the Book of Job, and you will, hopefully, immediately see the parallels. As with his explanation of the uncertainty principle in physics, the character of Larry is experiencing God’s wrath and God’s favor as the same events but he won’t understand that until after his suffering reaches its apex. The Coen brothers’ movie ends at the beginning of Job’s story. While the beginning of Job’s story is its most traumatic, horrifying point, it concludes with Job’s reconciliation with God. We don’t see this in the movie, but it is a story of optimism after extreme hardship and suffering.
Of all of the movies recently released, A Serious Man is one of the most ambitious, and I hate to see it get such a bad review, when it doesn’t seem like you understood the movie at all. I would hope that a Gentile and an Arab could produce such an impressive film.
Jessie Miller
Charlottesville