Where the stress falls
At the decade's start, never would I have predicted the Coen brothers' great second act of their career. The duo were previously suckers for the easy joke- the broad humor, but they're now passing on the gags of their youth and tempering their films. None of the characters in Serious Man are caricatures, they, instead, are all believably frustrating which makes the torment of Larry Gopnik all the more heart-wrenchingly normal, and deadened and, therefore, authentic.
Even the one emotional breakthrough in the film, between Larry and his brother, is stuck somewhere between dream-state and real-life. Larry’s experience starts in the real but moves into a terrible nightmare, calling into question the validity of the sincere uproar and reflection, as his subconscious shields the event with a twist of its own. Every other instance in which Larry is able to break out of the tempered drollery of his stifling defeat is done in fantasy- the lash out at Sy Lieberman, the sex scene with his neighbor- are all fictions of Larry’s slumber in order to create a guilt that makes his life livable.
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