A Serious Man

I love the Coen Brothers. Raising Arizona, O Brother, Where art Thou?, Fargo, Barton Fink, No Country for Old Men, and The Big Lebowski are all in my list of must see films. So what do you do when things start to go south? You forgive them one time (for Burn After Reading) and you feel certain the next movie will be great. But what if it's not? What if that movie sucks? And what if the movie you think is terrible, gets nominated for best picture at the Academy Award? All I can think is that it was really hard to get to 10 nominees.

A Serious Man is the story of a man who has everything going wrong all at the same time. It is set in the late 60's in generic town on the US Canada border. Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a professor of physics about to get tenure, but nothing is going right for him. His wife wants a divorce, his daughter ignores him, his son is a pot head, his freeloading brother is sleeping on his couch and he is in serious debt. Very loosely based on the biblical character Job, Gopnik is besieged. The problem is that you don't care. He is not a likable character, nor is anyone else in this movie. It is a frustrating movie with a terrible ending. If you can tell me why people like this movie, I would love to hear it.

Coen Brothers, you are on notice. I won't be running out to the theater to see the next one.