The Chabon-Coen Marriage: Difficult, but Maybe Perfect

By Katey Rich

Michael Chabon doesn't write bad novels, and the Coen Brothers don't make bad movies. Sure, you can have your quibbles here and there, but all three men have earned reputations for making carefully crafted, deeply resonant works. Even when they're making comedies, they're comedies that hurt; witness the dead dog rattling around in the trunk in Wonder Boys, or Ed sobbing as she tells Hi to "Turn to the right" for his mugshot in Raising Arizona.

So the pairing of directors and novelist for The Yiddish Policemen's Union, as announced yesterday in Variety, makes sense on every count. The Coens, teaming again with producer Scott Rudin, will seek acclaim once again by adapting a successful novel. Chabon, while his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay awaits movie development, will once again find recognition on the screen; 2000's Wonder Boys snagged three Oscar nominations.

Interestingly, Yiddish Policemen is, like No Country for Old Men for Cormac McCarthy, not Chabon's most prominent work. This will probably work hugely to the Coens' advantage. Tackling a widely beloved novel is a guarantee of harsh criticism and airy "It's not as good as the book" dismissals, even if you are the Coen Brothers. As much as I'm awaiting the Kavalier & Clay movie, I'm certain it won't match the movie already running in my head. But with Yiddish Policemen, which had good-but-not-stellar reviews and was a modest hit, the Coens have room to twist things and change them, in ways they didn't with McCarthy's book. It's a tough and dense novel, full of side characters and tricky back stories. It's a classic noir in many ways, which the Coens tackled elegantly in The Man Who Wasn't There. Still, with more to work with than McCarthy's spare stylings, the Coens will almost be compelled to meddle. Given the career high they're on at the moment, it seems meddling could only be a good thing.

One of the toughest parts of the book for the reader, and one of the biggest challenges facing the Coens, is that the novel is deeply rooted in Jewish history and mythology. It goes far beyond Woody Allen and even the borscht belt, delving into minute rules of the Talmud and the legend of a Messiah who will lead the Jews back to Israel. The Coens are Jewish, but their work has rarely if ever reflected their faith. Explanation of some of the legends and religious rules incorporated into Yiddish Policemen would require massive exposition passages on-screen, like the talky sections that destroyed the movie version of The Da Vinci Code. But it is also impossible for many parts of the story to occur without the information. Either the Coens risk alienating millions of viewers unfamiliar with Jewish history, or they tone down the religious details of the story; I can't think of any directors more capable of the task, but it still seems to be an impossible challenge.

For now I'm going with Anne Thompson's assessment: This could be a Scott Rudin match made in heaven. The Coens have picked a doozy of a book for their next adaptation, but who ever imagined a bluesy comedy based on The Odyssey would be a hit either?