A Serious Man (2009)

Essential Viewing

USA/UK/France

Feature Film

Writer/Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Cinematographer: Roger Deakins

Composer: Carter Burwell

Cast: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Sari Lennick, Fred Melamed, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus, Alan Mandell, Adam Arkin, George Wyner, Amy Landecker, Katherine Borowitz, Allen Lewis Rickman, Yelena Shmuelenson, Fyvush Finkel, Simon Helberg

The Coen brothers’ most accomplished film in several years – a ’60s set existential black comedy featuring a haunting performance from the excellent Stuhlbarg – depicts the trials and tribulations of a Jewish, suburban physics professor, as he battles (or at least comes up against) various personal and professional problems, which gradually, as his increasingly desperate pleas for help go unanswered, pummel him into submission. Iain.Stott