'A Serious Man' review

Michael Stuhlbarg (Credit: Wilson Webb/Focus)

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Physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg, excellent) is a good man and a good Jew, but his life is one aggravation after another. His wife wants a divorce, his brother (Richard Kind) won’t get off his couch, his kids are a pain, a student tries to bribe him and his boss isn’t sure whether or not to give him tenure. Yet he barely confronts his own problems. What can or should this guy do to make what goes around come around?

The buzz: Set in 1967 suburbia and featuring no major celebrities, “A Serious Man” is certainly a calmer, less attention-seeking film than writers-directors Joel and Ethan Coen’s enjoyably manic last film, “Burn After Reading.” It’s also undoubtedly more personal for the Jewish filmmakers, so hopefully audiences that like both the guys’ larks and their heavyweights (“No Country For Old Men”) will turn out for a film that’s inquisitive about faith and religion, offers hardly any action and an intro that’s entirely in Yiddish.

The verdict: Dark, dry and masterfully restrained, “A Serious Man” is plotted with the peculiarities of life and built around a man whose demeanor is like a politely throbbing vein. In this complex, controversial story there are very funny misunderstandings between teachers and students, Jews and non-Jews, rabbis and congregants, husbands and wives, and fathers and sons. Meanwhile, the terrifically clever and subtle film chronicles the search for the big, easy guide on how to live—and that the Coens don’t find anything is exactly the point. When the truth is elusive, answers are fleeting and we all wind up the same in the end, does it really matter what we do in the meantime?

Did you know? One character claims that he can’t eat late or he’ll have nightmares. Sensible eating is easy when you’re deciding between a brownie and having all your teeth fall out as a monster chases you around your high school while you’re naked.

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