The Coens may play around with that tradition, they may disparage it or mock it. But they are irrevocably a part of it, and that's all to the good.
Overview
It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous acquaintances Sy Ableman.
Director and cast
- Ethan Coen Director
- Joel Coen Director
- Michael Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik
- Richard Kind as Uncle Arthur
- Fred Melamed as Sy Ableman
- Sari Lennick as Judith Gopnik
- Aaron Wolff as Danny Gopnik
- Jessica McManus as Sarah Gopnik
- Adam Arkin as Don Milgram
- Peter Breitmayer as Mr. Brandt
- George Wyner Cast
- Brent Braunschweig Cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
If you're puzzled by the Coen Brothers' horrific comedies, this is the closest thing you'll get to an explanation.
The film's potency is rooted in quiet precision and detailed realisation. Roger Deakins's typically polished photography gives an oppressively hard edge to Midwestern suburbia.
Their most inside joke ever, it leaves you with a lot to chew on, if not a lot to enjoy.
Mostly, A Serious Man succeeds because it engages questions worth asking. What is integrity? Does our atavistic need for stories illuminate the meaning of life or further obfuscate it? What does it mean to be good and how are we to achieve it?
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