Admirably low-key, deeply compelling and their warmest movie since Fargo.
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11/20/09
A Serious Man (2009)
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Reviews Counted:14
Fresh:14
Rotten:0
Average Rating:8.8/10
Consensus: Blending dark humor with profoundly personal themes, the Coen brothers deliver what might be their most mature -- if not their best -- film to date.
Rated: 15 [See Full Rating]
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:20-11-2009
Synopsis: Imaginatively exploring questions of faith, familial responsibility, delinquent behavior, dental phenomena, academia, mortality, and Judaism - and intersections thereof - A Serious Man is the new... [More]
Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Fred Melamed, Richard Kind, Aaron Wolf
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Reviews for A Serious Man
1 - 13 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Top CriticThe film’s potency is rooted in quiet precision and detailed realisation. Roger Deakins’s typically polished photography gives an oppressively hard edge to Midwestern suburbia.
11/20/09
Top CriticPossibly the brothers' most consistently amusing film since The Big Lebowski.
11/20/09
Top CriticA Serious Man represents the brothers at their sardonic best, wringing a sacrilegious amount of gallows humour from the trials of their latterday Job.
11/20/09
Top CriticEuphoric, sad and thoughtful all at once... The Coens have finished the noughties as America's pre-eminent film-makers.
11/20/09
Top CriticA Serious Man, whether by accident or design, feels like a scratchier, more personal, less goofy version of the Coens’ aesthetic than they’ve revealed before. Here’s hoping their films get even more truculent in the future.
11/20/09
Top CriticThe Coen brothers may just have made their masterpiece with this, their 14th feature and yet another hairpin-bend change of direction, which has been their trademark for their entire career.
10/30/09
Top CriticThis isn't a laugh-laugh movie, but a wince-wince movie. Those can be funny, too.
10/08/09
Top CriticA seriously funny film about an angst-ridden Jewish professor seeking the answers to life's questions and getting a metaphysical pie in the face.
10/02/09
Top Critic[The Coens have made] their most personal, most intensely Jewish film, a pitch-perfect comedy of despair that, against some odds, turns out to be one of their most universal as well.
10/02/09
Top CriticA Serious Man is the kind of picture you get to make after you've won an Oscar.
10/02/09
Top CriticTo absorb God's body blows, this disquieting, haunting movie says, is to be fully alive. To do otherwise could kill you.
10/02/09
Top CriticA Serious Man is, like its biblical source, a distilled, hyperbolic account of the human condition. The punch line is a little different, but you know the joke. And it’s on you, of course.
10/02/09
Top Critic1 - 13 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Latest News for A Serious Man
October 19, 2009:
Total Recall: The Best-Reviewed Coen Brothers Films
For more than two decades now, Joel and Ethan Coen have been thrilling critics -- and, here and there, audiences -- with their distinctive blend of dark humor, colorful... More...
October 01, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Zombieland Is Bloody Good
This week at the movies, we've got zombie zaniness (Zombieland, starring Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg); derby dolls (Whip it, starring Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page);... More...
September 25, 2009:
Friday Harvest: A Serious Man, Up in the Air, and more!
Happy Friday Harvest, a weekly round-up of the best pictures, posters, and videos that have become available for viewing/download on Rotten Tomatoes. Each section features the... More...
September 09, 2009:
Buzz Builds for Toronto International Film Festival Offerings 
It'll feature more than 250 films from 60 countries, but don't feel overwhelmed -- the Los Angeles Times is here to help you sift through what's on offer at this year's Toronto... More...
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