A Serious Coen's movie, not seriously, but YES.

A Serious Man
Directors: Joel & Ethan Coen
By: Evana Vleck
4 1/2 stars

I am slowly but surely creating my top 10 favorite films of 2009, but before I do I want to give this film a post of its own because it stood out drastically from other films I saw in 09. Yes, The Coen's are my favorite directors, but that does not mean that I hand them credit, blind-folded, in fact I feel that each time it becomes more and more difficult to watch one of their films as they are released because I am afraid that it will not meet my high expectations. That was not the case here.

Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a Jewish professor goes through a life altering experience after he gets news from his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) that she wants a divorce and has developed a friendship with Larry's aquaintance, Sy (Fred Melamed). His dumb-found children, apparently have no care in the matter as his daughter is living life in a continuous hair-washing mayhem and his son is fixated on television.

Larry is at odds with his neighbors, and at odds in his job, in which he's currently seeking tenure for and lastly at odds with his brother "Uncle Arthur" (Richard Kind) who has an "odd" habbit of draining a neck cyst. This poses a problem with his family seeing how he has become a permanent guest in Larry's house making everyone a little too close for comfort.

Alone, Larry seeks adivice from 2 Jewish Rabbi's, but as luck would have it - gets nowhere but lost again and in a state where he is in constant search for answers that he hopes can gain closure on a life that was never opened up to begin with.

Taking place in the 1960's, Larry mentally stumbles within suburban hell. You can't help but to feel sorry for Larry, but you also can't help to want to slap the shit out of him.

SPOILERS
Mid-film Sy gets in a car accident and dies, and his soon to be ex-wife wants him to pay for a propper Jewish funeral (which Larry finds amusing but is lead to believe would be the right thing to do). Ignorant, Larry proceeds and later prepares for his son's barmitzfa [sp?]
END SPOILERS

Overall, the film was poetically paced and was filled with visual enticement...I wish I would have seen this on a larger screen, however the fluid colors and soft lenz worked beautifuly - the camera captured visual episodes in Larry's life that weren't communicated otherwise...it was a very serene film.

This is probably one of my favorite Coen's films because it goes back to that true grit of dark humor, subtle story line, bold images, colorful charachters straight out of a Kurt Vonnegut novel and a bold view of humanity from the eyes of the average joe, who we find is not all that average.