A Serious Man (2009/Universal Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B     Sound: B     Extras: C+     Film: C+

 

 

The Coen Brothers can always be counted on for trying something unique and different.  With the respect they have in the industry, they get to try out different ideas and A Serious Man offers a surreal tale of Jewish families in suburbia 1967 (just before the counterculture arrives there) not being able to hold traditional life together as they would wish.  Michael Stuhlberg is Larry Gopnik, a husband and science/math professor in crisis who is technically the title character.

 

His wife is not happy with his brother (Richard Kind) staying over for weeks on end, his son is bored in school, his daughter wants to wash her hair all the time and he is hoping for tenure at the college he teaches at.  At times, the film has some great scenes and some scenes involve Judaism in ways non-Jews may not understand, but the problem with the film is that the Coens are repeating (via their auteur-style in part) dynamics and approaches they have already covered and the film itself becomes more of a sitcom (upscale or not) than a real, palpable film, even with its surrealism.

 

Stuhlberg does give a breakthrough performance and is one of the reasons the film remains as watchable as it does.  Of course, they nail the period and even beyond music and TV shows.  It is still a good film and one of the few good releases Universal came up with in 2009, a year that will go down critically and commercially as the studio’s worst ever.  However, this has some interesting moments and if you like their films, you’ll want to catch it.

 

The 1080p digital High Definition image is in a 1.33 X 1 block-style for the pre-credit sequence and 1.85 X 1 (3-perf Super 35mm in this case) for the remainder of the film, all shot in 35mm film by Director of Photography Roger Deakins, A.S.C., B.S.C. and is often a fine-looking film.  Most shots here look good, but a few look softer than expected, though this is a very consistently good transfer.  It is juts not great.  The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix is from a dialogue-based film and is warm and clean.  Music and sound effects get the surround treatment and the spreading out of The Jefferson Airplane’s Somebody To Love is not bad.  Carter Burwell delivers another good score, but again, he too covers previous territory.

 

 

Extras include three making of featurettes: Hebrew & Yiddish For Guys, Becoming Serious and Creating 1967, plus BD Live interactive functions exclusive to Blu-ray.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo