Check Out the Trailer

I’ll start my review of the Coen brothers new film with a quote from the beginning of Todd McCarthy’s review, “A SERIOUS MAN is the kind of picture you get to make after you’ve won an Oscar.” Boy is that true, and thank God they won an Oscar, because now we are treated to this dark, hilarious comedy that brings the story of Job to the 1960s.

Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg, THE GREY ZONE) is a physics professor who nervously awaits the word on his tenure. But that’s the least of his problems. His wife Judith (Sari Lennick) abruptly tells him that she’s leaving him for the widower Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed, HANNAH AND HER SISTERS), the kind of overly appeasing and zen-like man that makes you want to punch him. Larry’s no-good brother Arthur (Richard Kind, TV’s MAD ABOUT YOU) is sleeping on his couch with no prospects for leaving. His son Danny (Aaron Wolff) is trying to get away with dozens of things behind his back. Getting his radio confiscated at Hebrew school creates a spiraling amount of problems for the pot-smoking teen. His daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) spends all her time washing her hair and complaining. Then one of his students Clive Park (David Kang) tries to bribe him. And when that doesn’t work, he tries to charge him with defamation of character for insinuating that he tried to bribe him.
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