MOVIE: A SERIOUS MAN
A Serious Man is the newest gem from the Coen brothers. The cast here are not from the usual Coen brothers’ stable, instead comprising far more low-profile players dexterously led by Michael Stuhlbarg as feckless physics professor Larry Gopnick. It is 1967 in the American Midwest and Larry is faced with a crisis of faith. His intolerable wife (Sari Lennick) has left him for an intolerable colleague (Fred Melamed), his intolerable children are hapless drifters and his intolerable brother is living on his couch. Larry turns to three rabbis successively trying to answer the eternal paradox, why does God let us see the questions if we cannot know the answers? A Serious Man is, despite many laugh-out-loud scenes, a serious film, and the Coen brothers again display their flair for incredible black comedy. Poor Larry just cannot catch a break it seems, giving the film the existentially bleak undercurrent that lends the laughs poignancy and depth. Another win for the Coen brothers and for their eager audiences. (KB)
