Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed
A black comedy set in 1967 and centered on Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern professor who watches his life unravel when his wife prepares to leave him because his inept brother won't move out of the house.
Directed by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Release Date: October 2, 2009
Stats: 815 reviews
The Coen brothers have created THE NEW FIDDLER ON THE ROOF! Here are the reasons I say that: first, the trailer in its own way presents a musical composition to us; second, the opening scene presents roughly the same time period and place; third, the story takes place in an alm...( read more)
without question, this is a film i could see myself raising the score on over time. this is a deeply brooding and thought provoking film that carries along with no clear plot until the end, when suddenly it all makes sense. this alegory of the life of Job takes a unique turn, p...( read more)
A Serious Man works a lot more like Barton Fink in its' lack of glamour with "Physics vs. Fate" serving as the platform. It begins with a strange prologue that plays like Fiddler on the Roof written by Franz Kafka. Seeming to be the Coen's most intensely intimate film, it's als...( read more)
Perhaps the biggest complaint about Joel & Ethan Coen is their cynicism -" the way they cruelly weave their characters through these never-ending layers of doom. "No Country for Old Men" was essentially about injustice and a kind of senseless, unrelenting violence. "A Serious Man...( read more)
Sy Abelman: Larry, everything's going to be fine.
A darkly comedic film from the Coen Brothers. That isn't something new, but this film certainly casts a very bleak outlook on its main character throughout. Sharing qualities not since one of their earlier films, Barton Fink, thi...( read more)
I'm excited to see this. I wonder if it is any good.
An interesting trailer, but its hard to guage how good a Coen brothers movie will be from a trailer, or from reviews from the butt kissing press. Lets hope its back to their old form.
I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. At first, I thought it was a little annoying that the film offered more questions than answers, but then, by the end of the film, found that it was kind of the point of the film in my opinion. I connected with the idea of questionin...( read more)
This movie was interesting...
I'm not sure if I liked it...but it was interesting. Like a few of the Coen brothers movies preceding this bleak, slow-paced character examination of a "Job"-like man (Job, from the Bible), it may grow on me after a second and third watch, and I m...( read more)
While there are plenty of oddball touches, some mystifying (like the Yiddish-language prologue, set in a Polish shtetl and seeming to have little to do with what follows it; and the abrupt ending) -- ... full review
This isn't a laugh-laugh movie, but a wince-wince movie. Those can be funny, too. full review
A Serious Man is a wonderfully odd, bleakly comic and thoroughly engrossing film. full review
What do the Coen brothers want of us? More specifically, what do they want us to think of the repellent people in this pitilessly bleak movie? full review
This seriously funny movie, artfully photographed by the great Roger Deakins, is spiritual in nature, barbed in tone, and, oh, yeah, it stings like hell. full review
A Serious Man is, like its biblical source, a distilled, hyperbolic account of the human condition. The punch line is a little different, but you know the joke. And it's on you, of course. full review
Man plans, God laughs, and so do the Coen brothers. full review
A Serious Man rejects the bland Jewishness of Judd Apatow films; it's similar to the black filmmakers' project in Next Day Air, in which social stereotypes get burlesqued, yet are used to reveal an es... full review
A Serious Man is not only hauntingly original, it's the final piece of the puzzle that is the Coens. full review
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