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.
A Serious Man (2009)
Tomatometer
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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
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
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.
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
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
Isn't drawn in one-to-one cause-effect lines, its obliqueness lending suspense and interpretative depth to the Job-like suffering of Larry.
...emotionally authentic and genuinely interested in the philosophical questions it raises.
A Serious Man somehow manages to be simultaneously incredibly intimate and autobiographical and yet so unrealistic as to verge on science fiction.
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.
A Great Film To Make You Think About Religion and Cosmic Forces While Making the Nasty Side of Your Mind Chuckle.
Never has a movie packed with so much hostility or existential angst made me smile from start to finish as this one did.
Larry's spiritual crisis doesn't attain its demanded empathy, leaving A Serious Man as a lesser work by great artists.
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.
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.
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.
The brothers’ deadpan style is hugely effective -- so much so that even if you hate the message you enjoy the messengers.
Takes the concept of the self-loathing Jew to an arguably loathsome new level...
No fan of the Coen Brothers' movies wouldn't miss A Serious Man, but for the uninitiated, this one may be tough sledding.
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.
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