A Serious Man (2009)
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Reviews Counted:162
Fresh:141
Rotten:21
Average Rating:7.8/10
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
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 4/5 |
The human comedy as portrayed in this film was never so cruel — or so funny. Full Review |
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This film is at once laugh-out-loud funny and deeply serious, troubling and satisfying, warm and bleak, both respectful of the Jewish heritage and mocking its restrictions and false comforts. Full Review |
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3/5 |
A Serious Man may be the Coens' most personal film, but the humour's too oblique to truly trouble the funnybone. Full Review |
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Admirers of the Coens – including those who have lapsed, like myself – will rejoice in their best film for a long while, and one of their most irreducibly oddball. Full Review |
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5/5 |
Admirably low-key, deeply compelling and their warmest movie since Fargo. Full Review |
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5/5 |
The 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. Full Review |
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4.5/5 |
Possibly the brothers' most consistently amusing film since The Big Lebowski. Full Review |
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4/5 |
A Serious Man represents the brothers at their sardonic best, wringing a sacrilegious amount of gallows humour from the trials of their latterday Job. Full Review |
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5/5 |
Euphoric, sad and thoughtful all at once... The Coens have finished the noughties as America's pre-eminent film-makers. Full Review |
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3/5 |
A 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. Full Review |
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5/5 |
For proof of comedy and tragedy’s close relationship, watch this. Larry is essentially having a nervous breakdown yet it’s the Coens’ most humanely funny script in years. Full Review |
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4/5 |
It's challenging, only if you want it to be. The secret to enjoying it, like life, is not to obsess over the bits that don't appear to make sense. Full Review |
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5/5 |
A bold, unique, exquisite gem.
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4/5 |
The Coen brothers most personal film to date, a typically shkrewy look at Jewishness that smartly nails the ticky-tackiness of American suburbia in 1967. Full Review |
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4/5 |
A complex, non-commercial Coen film that strips back the stars for an absorbing, affectionate look at the Bros’ youth. Full Review |
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5/5 |
A Serious Man feels – initially, at least – like a return to an earlier kind of filmmaking for the Coens. Full Review |
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There’s no real answer given, but then the Coen brothers have never been known as philosophers. They are, however, pretty smart film-makers. Full Review |
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4/5 |
Rigorously controlled, perhaps at the expense of a little emotional light and shade, this is one of the Coens' subtlest films. Expect smiles, grimaces, a slightly furrowed brow, and, finally, a feeling of satisfaction. Full Review |
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 2/5 |
To me, and I suspect the mass of the cinema-going public, it feels nasty and pointlessly vindictive. There's a hole in the middle of this movie, where a modicum of empathy and humanity ought to be. Full Review |
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4/5 |
Another impudent and exquisitely engineered comedy from Joel and Ethan Coen. Full Review |
CommentLatest News for A Serious Man
October 19, 2009:
Total Recall: The Best-Reviewed Coen Brothers Films
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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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