Matt Silver: Dan Dan Noodles from Han Dynasty/“A Serious
Man” (2009). Larry Gopnik is trying as hard as he can to be
a mensch, which in his suburban Midwestern milieu of 1967
is defined narrowly, and vaguely, as “a serious man.” Gopnik’s
neighbor and would-be cuckolder, Sy Abelman, is considered a
serious man but is really a fraud, a pedantic blowhard. No one but
Gopnik seems to notice.

Gopnik’s Jewish day school-educated son, approaching bar
mitzvah, is lost in a malaise of pot smoke and Jefferson Airplane
lyrics, and his daughter is systematically looting cash from his
wallet to save up for a nose job. Throw in a grades-for-cash boon-
doggle from which Gopnik (a university professor) can’t extricate
himself and a tenure committee poised to pounce on any perceived
misstep, and it really starts to feel like Hashem must be punishing
this beleaguered math-geek for something.

The more he learns, the less he seems to know. Everywhere he
turns for advice — from his divorce lawyer, to his dentist, to a parade
of junior rabbis (the senior rabbi, Rabbi Marshak is always “thinking”
and, thus, too busy to meet with him) — he’s given some abstract
parable, some indecipherable piece of spiritual gobbledygook.

In one memorable scene, Gopnik, a physics professor, teaches
a lecture hall full of bewildered students Heisenberg’s uncertainty
principle. As we see the entire lecture hall shot from on high,
blackboard filled with incomprehensible mathematic scribble,
Gopnik finishes his proof and, with resignation, enlightens: “It
proves we can’t ever really know what’s going on.” Gopnik pauses,
before continuing: “But even though you can’t figure anything out,
you will be responsible for it on the midterm.”
Matt Silver recommends Dan Dan noodles to go along with any
viewing of “A Serious Man”
Photo courtesy of user jschoelver
A movie so contemplative and funny and rich in layers calls for
Chinese food with a multidimensional flavor profile. Han Dynasty,
Philly’s original foray into the Sichuan Revolution, has got to be
the choice. The cumin-heavy dishes are dry and bitter, like the
film’s comedic sensibility, and also spicy, like Gopnik’s next-door
neighbor who sunbathes topless, the alluring Mrs. Samsky.

The famous Dan Dan Noodles (which may be ordered
without the pork) are slippery like Sy Abelman and nutty like
Gopnik’s unemployable brother (played pitch-perfectly by
Richard Kind), who’s working on a secret treatise called the
“Mentaculous” that turns out to be detached from every known
reality. Add some extra chili flakes for those relatives who are
See Chinese, Page 30
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