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Movies / In Theaters / A Serious Man
A Serious Man

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A Serious Man (2009)

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Reviews Counted:170

Fresh:148

Rotten:22

Average Rating:7.8/10

Consensus: Blending dark humor with profoundly personal themes, the Coen brothers deliver what might be their most mature -- if not their best -- film to date.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for language, some sexuality/nudity and brief violence

Genre: Comedies

Theatrical Release:Oct 2, 2009 Limited

Box Office: $8,717,516

Synopsis: Imaginatively exploring questions of faith, familial responsibility, delinquent behavior, dental phenomena, academia, mortality, and Judaism - and intersections thereof - A Serious Man is the new... Imaginatively exploring questions of faith, familial responsibility, delinquent behavior, dental phenomena, academia, mortality, and Judaism - and intersections thereof - A Serious Man is the new film from Academy Award-winning writer/directors Joel and Ethan Coen.

A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik (Tony Award nominee Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous acquaintances, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry. Larry's unemployable brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny (Aaron Wolff) is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job.

While his wife and Sy Ableman blithely make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry's chances for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person - a mensch - a serious man? --© Focus films [More]

Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Fred Melamed, Richard Kind, Aaron Wolf

Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Fred Melamed, Richard Kind, Aaron Wolf, Sari Wagner, Jessica McManus

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Screenwriter: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Producer: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Composer: Carter Burwell
Studio: Focus Features

[See More Credits]

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Reviews for A Serious Man

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najvjerojatnije ne%u0107e postati neupitni filmski klasik

Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews | comment Comment
12/18/09
Dragan Antulov
Dragan Antulov
rec.arts.movies.reviews

Even here, in their mystical-obscure mode, the Coens work cleanly and rigorously.

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
12/17/09
Rob Gonsalves
Rob Gonsalves
eFilmCritic.com

I hated just about every agonizing, smug minute of it.

Full Review Source: Goatdog's Movies | comment Comment
12/17/09
Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Goatdog's Movies

A unique alchemy seems to take hold on those sporadic occasions when the Coen brothers decide to get down with their ethnic roots.

Full Review Source: Screen International | comment Comment
12/16/09
Jan Stuart
Jan Stuart
Screen International

...for almost the first time in their careers, [the Coen bros.] have twined that jabbing satire with a deeper sense of the tragic.

Full Review Source: PopMatters | comment Comment
12/15/09
Chris Barsanti
Chris Barsanti
PopMatters

an at times sublime cinematic exploration of the inscrutable nature of earthly suffering and possibly the best mainstream treatment of that subject since Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors

Full Review Source: Q Network Film Desk | comment Comment
12/12/09
James Kendrick
James Kendrick
Q Network Film Desk

This is the brothers most personal and most Jewish film, which doesn't stop it from being their most universal and one of their best.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
12/10/09
Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

As great a movie as the brothers have ever made.

Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews | comment Comment
12/07/09
Jeffrey Chen
Jeffrey Chen
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

It's a funny film, but mostly to those who convince themselves that there's truth behind every facet of Larry's ludicrously-miserable existence.

Full Review Source: Cinemalogue.com | comment Comment
12/06/09
Rubin Safaya
Rubin Safaya
Cinemalogue.com

Yet another masterpiece from the Coen Brothers. Something like an existential Alfred Hitchcock movie crossed with Jewish spirituality, a touch of mysticism and the Coens' insistence that the rates of mortality and morality are rigidly intertwined.

Full Review Source: Suite101.com | comment Comment
12/03/09
Nick Rogers
Nick Rogers
Suite101.com

The human comedy as portrayed in this film was never so cruel — or so funny.

Full Review Source: Sunday Times (UK) | comment Comment
11/27/09
Cosmo Landesman
Cosmo Landesman
Sunday Times (UK)

This film is at once laugh-out-loud funny and deeply serious, troubling and satisfying, warm and bleak, both respectful of the Jewish heritage and mocking its restrictions and false comforts.

Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | comment Comment
11/27/09
Philip French
Philip French
Observer [UK]

A Serious Man may be the Coens' most personal film, but the humour's too oblique to truly trouble the funnybone.

Full Review Source: Daily Mirror [UK] | comment Comment
11/27/09
David Edwards
David Edwards
Daily Mirror [UK]

Admirers of the Coens – including those who have lapsed, like myself – will rejoice in their best film for a long while, and one of their most irreducibly oddball.

Full Review Source: Independent on Sunday | comment Comment
11/27/09
Jonathan Romney
Jonathan Romney
Independent on Sunday

A Serious Man simply doesn't care whether or not you like it. In part, I think that's exactly why I do like it: The "take it or leave it" attitude is refreshing.

Full Review Source: Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) | comment Comment
11/26/09
Ken Hanke
Ken Hanke
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Admirably low-key, deeply compelling and their warmest movie since Fargo.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
11/20/09
Dan Jolin
Dan Jolin
Empire Magazine

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.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
11/20/09
Ben Walters
Ben Walters
Time Out

Possibly the brothers' most consistently amusing film since The Big Lebowski.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
11/20/09
Richard Luck
Richard Luck
Channel 4 Film

A Serious Man represents the brothers at their sardonic best, wringing a sacrilegious amount of gallows humour from the trials of their latterday Job.

Full Review Source: Times [UK] | comment Comment
11/20/09
Wendy Ide
Wendy Ide
Times [UK]

Euphoric, sad and thoughtful all at once... The Coens have finished the noughties as America's pre-eminent film-makers.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
11/20/09
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]
 
 
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