A Serious Man
Movie, 2009, The 2000s, Set in Minnesota, 1967
A Serious Man is #14 of 21 in release order and #14 of 21 in chronological order in the The Coen Brothers.
The story
It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. He scrambles to find a semblance of meaning as he loses control of nearly every aspect of his life.
A Serious Man recap
A Serious Man (2009) follows a Minnesota physics professor in 1967 whose life falls apart as he looks to his Jewish faith for answers. Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is up for tenure when his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) asks for a religious divorce so she can marry the smooth widower Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). Larry's jobless brother Arthur (Richard Kind) lives on the couch filling a notebook with a mathematical theory of everything. A failing student leaves an envelope of cash in his office, and the boy's father threatens to sue whatever Larry does. Anonymous letters urge the tenure committee to reject him. Moved out to a motel, Larry consults one rabbi after another and gets parables instead of answers, while his son Danny prepares for his bar mitzvah and owes money for marijuana. A Yiddish folk tale serves as prologue. Joel and Ethan Coen wrote and made it as their fourteenth feature, after Burn After Reading.
A Serious Man ending explained
A Serious Man ends with two warnings arriving at once. Sy dies in a car crash, and Larry pays for the funeral. At Danny's bar mitzvah, Judith tells Larry that Sy wrote the letters to the tenure committee, and the department head hints that tenure is coming. Then a $3,000 legal bill for Arthur arrives, and Larry changes the student's grade from F to C minus. At that moment his doctor calls asking to see him about his chest X-ray, and at Danny's school a tornado bears down as the teacher fumbles to open the shelter.
Post-credits scenes
No. A Serious Man has no mid- or post-credits scene.
Where to watch A Serious Man
A Serious Man is streaming on Prime Video in the US. You can rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play.
Ratings
IMDb 7.0/10, Rotten Tomatoes 89%
Where it fits
- Release order: after Burn After Reading, before True Grit.
- Chronological order: after Burn After Reading, before True Grit.
Cast
- Michael Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik
- Richard Kind as Uncle Arthur
- Fred Melamed as Sy Ableman
- Sari Lennick as Judith Gopnik
- Aaron Wolff as Danny Gopnik
- Jessica McManus as Sarah Gopnik
- Peter Breitmayer as Mr. Brandt
- Brent Braunschweig as Mitch Brandt
- David Kang as Clive Park
- Benjamin Portnoe as Danny's Reefer Buddy
- Jack Swiler as Boy on Bus
- Andrew S. Lentz as Cursing Boy on Bus
Directed by Ethan Coen, Joel Coen.