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A Serious Man

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A Serious Man (2009)

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Reviews Counted:126

Fresh:107

Rotten:19

Average Rating:7.7/10

Consensus: Blending dark humor with profoundly personal themes, the Coen brothers deliver what might be their most mature -- if not their best -- film to date.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for language, some sexuality/nudity and brief violence

Genre: Comedies

Theatrical Release:Oct 2, 2009 Limited

Box Office: $5,833,069

Synopsis: Imaginatively exploring questions of faith, familial responsibility, delinquent behavior, dental phenomena, academia, mortality, and Judaism - and intersections thereof - A Serious Man is the new... Imaginatively exploring questions of faith, familial responsibility, delinquent behavior, dental phenomena, academia, mortality, and Judaism - and intersections thereof - A Serious Man is the new film from Academy Award-winning writer/directors Joel and Ethan Coen.

A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik (Tony Award nominee Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous acquaintances, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry. Larry's unemployable brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny (Aaron Wolff) is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job.

While his wife and Sy Ableman blithely make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry's chances for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person - a mensch - a serious man? --© Focus films [More]

Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Fred Melamed, Richard Kind, Aaron Wolf

Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Fred Melamed, Richard Kind, Aaron Wolf, Sari Wagner, Jessica McManus

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Screenwriter: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Producer: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Composer: Carter Burwell
Studio: Focus Features

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Reviews for A Serious Man

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It's also a dark, sometimes profound film that almost certainly sits amongst the best of this year and it's yet another badge on the decorated jackets of Hollywood's most accomplished filmmaking duo.

Full Review Source: IGN Movies AU | comment Comment
11/15/09
Patrick Kolan
Patrick Kolan
IGN Movies AU

For those who thought No Country For Old Men was too lightweight and resolved itself too neatly, behold the abyss that is A Serious Man.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine Australasia | comment Comment
11/15/09
Michael Adams
Michael Adams
Empire Magazine Australasia

You're unlikely to react with much more than a shrug.

Full Review Source: KyleSmithOnline.com | comment Comment
11/15/09
Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith
KyleSmithOnline.com

Often subtle, often outrageous and perhaps selfish film (they didn't make it for us, they made it for themselves but we can share it); those who approach the film with a genuine curiosity will get something out of it

Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | comment Comment
11/13/09
Andrew L. Urban
Andrew L. Urban
Urban Cinefile

I guarantee Woody Allen will love this film just as I do, for its truthful depiction, great characterisations and bite. The beginning is a surprise, too

Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | comment Comment
11/13/09
Louise Keller
Louise Keller
Urban Cinefile

It's unclassifiable -- and also one of the best movies of the year.

Full Review Source: Creative Loafing | comment Comment
11/13/09
Matt Brunson
Matt Brunson
Creative Loafing

Isn't drawn in one-to-one cause-effect lines, its obliqueness lending suspense and interpretative depth to the Job-like suffering of Larry.

Full Review Source: Lessons of Darkness | comment Comment
11/12/09
Nick Schager
Nick Schager
Lessons of Darkness

...emotionally authentic and genuinely interested in the philosophical questions it raises.

Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | comment Comment
11/07/09
Philip Martin
Philip Martin
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

A Serious Man somehow manages to be simultaneously incredibly intimate and autobiographical and yet so unrealistic as to verge on science fiction.

Full Review Source: Examiner.com | comment Comment
11/06/09
Adam Lippe
Adam Lippe
Examiner.com

The only thing missing from the film -- which is frequently amusing but too bleak to be consistently laugh-out-loud funny -- is a genuine connection with its audience.

Full Review Source: Times-Picayune | comment Comment
11/06/09
Mike Scott
Mike Scott
Times-Picayune

A Great Film To Make You Think About Religion and Cosmic Forces While Making the Nasty Side of Your Mind Chuckle.

Full Review Source: Film Snobs | comment Comment
11/04/09
Jimmy O
Jimmy O
Film Snobs

Never has a movie packed with so much hostility or existential angst made me smile from start to finish as this one did.

Full Review Source: The Trend | comment Comment
11/04/09
Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver
The Trend

Larry's spiritual crisis doesn't attain its demanded empathy, leaving A Serious Man as a lesser work by great artists.

Full Review Source: Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia) | comment Comment
11/04/09
Mark Palermo
Mark Palermo
Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

A profoundly disturbing movie, all the more so because it's so damned hilarious. I think it's a great film; one that is finally worthy of all the hoopla that usually attends the Cohen's movies.

Full Review Source: Windy City Times | comment Comment
11/03/09
Richard Knight
Richard Knight
Windy City Times

Far more relatable than the Coens' recent work, and one cannot watch it without pondering some questions about the meaning of trials and the nature of fate.

Full Review Source: Christianity Today | comment 1 Comment
10/31/09
Alissa Wilkinson
Alissa Wilkinson
Christianity Today

Filmmaking brothers Joel and Ethan Coen explore their Jewish roots in their most personal film to date. You don't have to be Jewish to appreciate the subtle ethnic humor, but it wouldn't hurt.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Spectrum | comment Comment
10/30/09
Keith Cohen
Keith Cohen
Entertainment Spectrum

The brothers’ deadpan style is hugely effective -- so much so that even if you hate the message you enjoy the messengers.

Full Review Source: Kansas City Star | comment Comment
10/30/09
Robert W. Butler
Robert W. Butler
Kansas City Star

Takes the concept of the self-loathing Jew to an arguably loathsome new level...

Full Review Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) | comment Comment
10/30/09
John Beifuss
John Beifuss
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

No fan of the Coen Brothers' movies wouldn't miss A Serious Man, but for the uninitiated, this one may be tough sledding.

Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | comment Comment
10/30/09
Jam! Movies

The Coen brothers may just have made their masterpiece with this, their 14th feature and yet another hairpin-bend change of direction, which has been their trademark for their entire career.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
10/30/09
Andrew Pulver
Andrew Pulver
Guardian [UK]
 
 
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