As if you need any reason to be interested in a Coen Bros. movie.
Here’s how great the Coen Bros. are:
Richard Kind may be my least favorite actor in the history of actors. He’s the biggest name in the cast and I’m still dying to see this. Unless it’s 1994 and Chicago Hope is on the air. In that case Adam Arkin’s the biggest name in the cast. Richard Kind. The guy who has one speed and whose jaw can cut a battleship in two. He’s your biggest marquee name and I couldn’t be more giddy about seeing this movie. If it was written and directed by anyone else in the world it’d my least anticipated movie, but luckily it’s a Coen Bros. film and therefore stronger than any damage Richard Kind’s massive chin could aspire to. Even the synopsis baffles a gentleman:
“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 (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 colleagues, 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 Wolf) 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?
But you watch the trailer and YOU GET IT. At least I did. This looks fantastic and the editing of the trailer should be given its own award. If you need prodding to click the link below, you are a buffoon.