Benny Jay: A Serious Man

The other day I see “A Serious Man” – the new Coen Brothers movie — and I can’t stop thinking about it.

It’s a existential dark comedy about a man who’s losing his mind. I love it. It’s in my mind when I go to bed at night and on my mind when I wake up in the morning.

I want to tell you all about it, but I don’t want to spoil the movie for you. I will tell you this: Michael Stuhlbarg, the actor who plays the main character, is magnificent. All this shit is happening to him and he has this perfect look of deadpan disbelief as he tries to keep his sanity.

Plus, they play “Comin’ Back to Me” this haunting, old Jefferson Airplane ballad I always liked. Hadn’t heard it in years. Soon as I heard it in the movie, I thought: Damn, I like that song! I’ve been singing it ever since.

I love the movie so much I want to talk about it, but I can’t cause no one else has seen it. Not even my wife – remember, I went alone.

I’m not exaggerating. It’s hard to find anyone who even knows about the movie.  And it’s not like I haven’t tried. Wherever I go — whomever I see – I ask the same question: “Have you seen `A Serious Man’?”

Nope.

It’s starting to make me wonder: Do I live on a different planet? I mean, someone must have seen it – right? At the very least, there were other people in the theater with me on Sunday afternoon.

I ask Big Mike, who knows absolutely everything about pop culture, if he’s seen it. Then I remember — he’s stuck in Indiana.  Do they show Coen brother movies in Indiana?

I go to bowling. There’s a ton of guys in the bowling league. Surely, one of them has seen it. I ask Danny, a thirty-something-year-old hipster.

“Huh?” he says.

“`A Serious Man’ by the Coen Brothers….”

Pause.

“You’ve heard of the Coen brothers, haven’t you?’

Another pause.

“They did `Fargo’….

“Fargo?”

“Yeah, Fargo…..”

“Great movie….”

Sigh….

I ask my mother. I know she hasn’t seen it. She and my father used to see movies all the time, but not anymore. They say they’re too loud. The last movie my father saw was “Fahrenheit 9/11” by Michael Moore. During the previews, he got up to tell the manager to lower the volume.

My mother hasn’t seen a movie since December, when my younger daughter and I took her to see “Marley and Me.” You know, the movie about the dog. My mom loves dogs. My dad loves dogs, too. But he wouldn’t got with us cause he said the movie – which, keep in mind, he hadn’t seen — was crap. And he wasn’t patronizing crap.

Anyway, I ask my mom if she’s seen “A Serious Man” even though I know she hasn’t because just talking about not seeing the movie is almost as good as talking about what it’s actually about – if you know what I mean.

“The Cohen brothers?” she asks.

“No, Coen….”

“Who are they?”

Oh, brother….

I open The New York Times art section, hoping to find an article about the movie. They’re always writing about movies.

I read an article about Michael Jackson’s new song – apparently, Paul Anka actually wrote it years ago. But nothing about the movie.

My wife comes home from work.

“Did anyone at work see the movie?” I ask.

“Nope….”

“Anyone talk about it?”

“Nope….”

“No one?”

“No one….”

“I can understand that. It’s a movie about Jews. But not just about Jews, like, oh, they’re funny or cute. But really about what it’s like to be Jewish in this country – you know what I mean?”

“Uh-huh,” she says absentmindedly, as her eyes slide toward the newspaper that’s lying on the kitchen table….

“I like to think that to really appreciate this movie you have to be Jewish or at least hang around Jews – you know?”

She looks up from the newspaper and says: “They’re going to have to pay Paul Anka.”

Yes, well, um — so ends that conversation.

Come tomorrow, I have a ton of phone calls to make to people all over town about all sorts of things. I’m sure I’ll find one — that’s all, I don’t ask for much – who has seen the movie.