Ok. Is anyone else really annoyed by artsy movies that have deep themes and symbolism but no apparent storyline crux or point? I watched A Serious Man with the BF last night and at first my intrest was piqued. The characters seemed interesting, the setting was in a different period (the '60s) and it was visually stimulating. But lo, I should have resorted to my past experiences of the initial piqued interest being followed by confusion, frustration, and ultimately boredom. I should realize this to be a telltale sign of a bad movie. Seriously (no pun intended). Even the English Major in me couldn't catch on to what the hell was going on. Ok, so the main dude has a son who is causing trouble at school, and his wife is leaving him, and his brother is a mooch and is sleeping on the couch, and he's having issues with a certain student at his school. Ok. Cool. What's going to happen? Is the son going ultimately get caught for his shenanigans? Is his wife eventually going to get a freaking divorce already? Is his brother going to turn out to find the meaning of a mathematical mystery? Is the student going to cause enough trouble to get the main character fired? IS ANYTHING GOING TO HAPPEN!?!??!
Apparently, no. Everything just keeps going and going and going and going. I'm assuming they were going for some sort of Naturalism from how detailed everything was. Too bad Naturalism is stupid and was only cool a hundred years ago.
Anyway, I looked up some reviews of this movie because I'm pretty sure I heard about it being awesome in the media. Lo and behold all movie critics are wetting their pants about how "mature and engrossing" it is. How it "conveys a vivid sense of time and place" (Naturalism at its best). How it has a "pervasive sense of unease" (yeah, because I'm wasting my time waiting for something that's not going to happen, happen). Really, the critics who are sucking up to the Coen brothers so they sound smart and fancy what with their oh so accurate eye for art and themes and camera shots are just as annoying, if not more so, than the movie itself.
The BF and I luckily realized how boring and lame this pointless movie was only about 45 minutes in and shut it off so we could take a look at the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Oh I'm sure there was tons of religious symbolism and relationship themes that I just glossed over, but guess what. I'm either not smart enough to understand the deep philosophical struggles of this boring man, or the Cohen brothers are out of ideas for decent story plots.
Oh that made me giggle! I am so glad that I read this because I was thinking about watching it. But now... not so much.
ReplyDeleteOh Sam, your wonderful words have saved me 45 mintues of suck!!
By chance have you read what happens at the end?