STUDIO: Universal | DIRECTOR: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen | CAST: Michael Stuhlbarg, Sari Lennick, Fred Melamed, Richard Kind
RELEASE DATE: 2/9/2010 | PRICE: DVD$29.98, Blu-ray
$36.98
BONUSES: three featurettes
SPECS: R | 106 min. | Comedy/Drama | 1.85:1 widescreen | Dolby Digital 5.1 | English subtitlesRATINGS (out of 5): Movie
| Audio
| Overall
Set in the early 1970s, this film from the Academy Award-winning Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan (No Country for Old Men), is a darkly comic affair.
The story of A Serious Man revolves around seemingly nice Midwestern physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), whose faith and tolerance is put to the test when his wife (Sari Lennick) announces she’s leaving him for one of their neighbors (Fred Melamed). Next, his layabout brother (Richard Kind) moves in with no apparent intention of leaving, and one of his students goes to extremes to get a grade raised — all while Gopnik is trying to plan his son’s upcoming bar mitzvah.
Filled with the Coens’ trademark quirkiness and distinct visual flair, the highly personal A Serious Man appears to be a paean to the directors’ own Jewish Midwestern upbringing, which gives it limited appeal at the outset.
For those who can relate to the “outsider” material and unique pacing and rhythms of the admittedly outsider filmmaking brothers, this story of a mensch who can’t even get answers from his rabbi is a wildly original and engrossing piece — and one for lovers of all things Coen, particularly their similarly dark comedy Barton Fink.
The DVD includes three brief featurettes.
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