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 The brothers Ethan and Joel Cohen may not be a household name; their offbeat insightful movies are the favorites of the masses worldwide. They are the writer/director team of such hits as “Burn After Reading” (2008), multiple Oscar® winner “No Country for Old Men” (2007), my favorite “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (2000), “The Big Lebowski” (1998), “Fargo” (1996), “The Hudsucker Proxy” (1994), “Raising Arizona” (1987), and their first movie “Blood Simple” (1984).
Their latest, “A Serious Man”, is set in the sixties. The ‘every man’ model for this movie is a physics professor trying to cope with living life. His hurdles include his wife who’s leaving him for one of his pompous friends, an unemployed brother who sleeps on the couch, a son with discipline problems at school, and a daughter who feels she’s needs plastic surgery to be pretty! The Cohen brothers use extreme characters and circumstances, which is their usual style, for lessons on life!
.jpg) "A Serious Man” is the story of an ordinary man’s search for clarity in living life. It is 1967, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor at a quiet midwestern university, has just been told by his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) that she is leaving him for the pompous acquaintance, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). Adding to Larry’s woes is his unemployed brother Arthur (Richard Kind) who sleeps on the couch, his son Danny (Aaron Wolff) with a discipline problem and is trying to ‘wing’ his way through Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) who makes regular raids on his wallet in order to save up for a nose job!
Solace for Larry seems out of the question as he tries to coupe with the added stress of an anonymous hostile letter-writer who is trying to sabotage his chances for tenure at the university, a graduate student trying to bribe him for a passing grade, and the beautiful woman next door who torments him by sunbathing nude. Feeling his life is totally out of control and going nowhere, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis, so that he can become, “A Serious Man”.
The Cohen brothers deliver their brand of humor, extremes, and absurd situations with the underlying lessons of confronting and living with the challenges that life brings.
Starring Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed, Sari Lennick, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus, Peter Breitmayer, Brent Braunschweig, and David Kang.
Written and Directed by Ethan and Joel Cohen; Rated R for language, some sexuality/nudity and brief violence; Focus Features release; Runtime: 105 minutes. |
