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I had very high expectations for the next Coen Brothers film after their great success with No Country For Old Men and then another great follow-up Burn After Reading but when I watched A Serious Man, I found it to be one of the most disappointing films that I have watched in a while. To be honest, I don't fully know how to explain what my overall thoughts were of the film but the best thing I can say is that the plot became a confusing and chaotic mess and didn't really make any sense as the story carried on and because of this, the plot went flat and when it suddenly ended, I was like "Right… what the f***?" To be honest, I think the only thing that was good in this film was the script from the Coen's and the great performance from Michael Stuhlbarg.
A Serious Man is set in 1967 and tells the story of a Jewish college physics professor called Larry Gopnik (Stuhlbarg) who lives with his family in suburbs of Minneapolis, Minesota. His life is a nightmare during the film as his son Danny secretly smokes marijuana, his daughter Sarah is stealing money from him to get a nose job, his brother Arthur (Kind) has been staying on their couch for months and his wife wants a divorce and a gett so she can be with family friend and widower Sy Ableman. Michael Stuhlbarg's performance as Larry Gopnik was really good! When hard events occur in Larry's life, there are some moments where people would laugh but the film would darkly show its comedy in this sense but I thought there was nothing funny about it but at the same time, I thought there was nothing emotional about it either. I mean, I did like the character to start off with but unfortunately the film was too flat for me to like the character even more as it went on. Richard Kind's performance as Arthur Gopnik was even better than Michael Stuhlbarg's was. Kind was barely in any scenes at the beginning but midway through the film until the end, he was a powerful and effective character who became more important in the film than Larry did.
Like every single film the Coen's have done, they are just totally random with random stories, characters but very similar writing styles except one or two they have done before (No Country For Old Men, for example). The Coen's failed to make this one exciting like they did with their previous two films and I began to feel less and less bothered about what was going to happen. Seeing as the film is a black comedy and I realize that it isn't always a laugh-out-loud comedy with simple humor but I was open minded when watching this film and there was not one moment where I'd chuckle. There wasn't even anything humorous in the story, characters or anything! On the bright side of things, there's no doubt that the Coen's are some of the best script writers of our time in this generation. I would say their writing style is like Quentin Tarantino but unfortunately directing A Serious Man was a mistake.
Overall, A Serious Man is a film that I wouldn't call a bad film but wouldn't call a good film either so it is just an average film. Both Invictus and Nine should have been nominated Best Picture instead of A Serious Man and The Blind Side. Unfortunately, it is the worst film so far from the Coen's and one of the most disappointing films I've seen. Their next film better bring them back on track!
6/10
