Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on February 2011

A Serious Man: ©2009 Focus Features LLC. All Rights Reserved

The Coen Brothers continue to defy categorization, this time applying their profound philosophical inquiry to a comedy of discomfort about Jewish Midwestern life in the ’60s. Physics professor Larry Gropnik’s (Michael Stuhlbarg) hopes for tenure are being sabotaged, his wife is leaving him for a friend, his babe neighbor has taken to nude sunbathing, and his rabbi is spouting quotes from Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love.” The humor in the Coens’ most personal movie to date is intellectual and existential, and the script is rich in wit. But don’t expect a tidy ending; they’ve left that up to you to write.