A Serious Man

The Coen Brothers are another pair of directors I admire for their diversity of films that they do. They can do all star comedies such as 'Burn After Reading' and then do no star comedies such as this one.

The comedy in this film is very much of the black variety. There are quite a few laugh out loud moments but the humour mostly comes from seeing Larry continually have bad things happen to him, especially his wife who usually talks down to him and sees him as unreasonable when he doesn't agree with her position on things. Most of the humour comes from laughing at these people at how egotistical they are. The film is also very firmly set in the Jewish culture. In some respects I felt a little bit alienated from the film in that respect. I got the feeling I may not understand as much because I'm not Jewish. I was able to follow it based on what I've learnt from other films with Jewish (not that this is the best place to learn) but I just felt I may have missed some of the more subtle jokes or nuances because I'm not Jewish. Despite that I found the film very funny and the story very interesting. It can be compared to 'American Beauty' in that it is about a man in the suburbs going through a life changing experience. But Lester Burnham is more proactive than Larry Gopnik. The ending to the film is quite strange too as it seems to end rather abruptly and not all things are completely resolved. I think this may have been done to leave you thinking a bit more as you leave the movie.

Michael Stuhlbarg is not an actor you or even I have ever seen before but he is excellent as Larry in this film. He has the right nerdy/loser quality that suits the role. He is excellent at being the put upon guy who has nothing go right for him. Richard Kind is one of the familiar faces in the film and is good as Larry's brother.

This is not a film for everyone. Being a black comedy you won't find many obvious laughs. But it is still another quality film from a pair of the best directors working in Hollywood today.