Posted by StefanJ
on 10/17/2009, 8:52 pm
This is the new Coen Brothers ("Raising Arizona," "The Man Who Wasn't There", "O Brother Where Art Thou") movie.
REALLY good but very unusual. It begins with a sort of ghost-story anecdote in an old Eastern European village, where a man accidentally invites a dybbuk (a ghost, but not quite) into his home, and bad stuff follows.
Fast forward to 1967, in Minneapolis. Larry Gopnik, nebbishy jewish physics teacher, haplessly watches as the world starts to fall apart around him. His wife leaves for a smarmy family friend, his son smokes pot instead of studying for his Bar Mitzvah, a student bribes him for a good grade, and his flaky brother who sleeps on the couch spends his days scribbling incomprehensible equations.
He tries to consult rabbis to find meaning and answers and just gets more confused.
I'm having a hard time saying more, other than it is painfully funny and humorously painful. It is profoundly strange, and maybe profound.
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