source: A Serious Man

The movie draws you in from the first scene and then it begins. Good plot with rich characters. Great acting. A movie about the meaning of life. I'm not sure what it all meant but I loved it and I loved it even more when I read a review afterward.

Everything in this movie is wrong. Everything. The script is unrefined and lacks anything approaching a narrative structure - yet manages to make no impact. The Coen brothers rely upon a surfeit of cheap narrative tricks all of which make the audience fully disengage. The cast is mediocre at best - most of the actors perform far below par for a Coen brothers film. Those wonderful characters that you remember from The Big Lebowski, Fargo, or Raising Arizona are nowhere in A Serious Man. The directing is lackluster and unimpressive with few out-of-the-ordinary camera shots and many that look like they could come out of any pretentious art-house film. The Coen brothers have said that the opening scene of the film has no meaning - they are wrong. This entire film has no meaning - at least not one worth sitting through its depressing and boring runtime.

A Serious Man is seriously disappointing. This film takes the book of Job and makes it even more bleak than the original story. The dialogue and acting are actually quite good, but the story is intolerable most of the time. This is on the low end of Coen Brothers' movies.

I've enjoyed so many well-crafted Coen brothers movies that I was all set for another treat when I settled down to watch this one. What an utter disappointment. I can only imagine that it was intended as a spoof or that it has tons of inside humor and meaning for the Jewish audience. If you watch the Coens snickering in the background during filming as caught in the "making of" special included on the DVD it only lends credence to the practical joke theory. One positive thing that it did accomplish was a vivid demonstration of the lack of benefits to be derived from organized religion when one is truly in an emotional crisis. If that was the Coen's intent; i.e., to discredit and denigrate their religion, they succeeded. Henceforth, I will be doing more research before spending money to see new Coen brothers movies. As the saying goes, "Fool me once...."

At first sigh, theirs names annswers to all questions. in reasonable way. because, it is a story about solitude, family crisis, Jewish humor and stereotypes, the need to adapte yourself to a world without meaning. in same ,measure, it is a challenge for viewer. to define himself. to be honest about the perspectivve about small details defining ordinary every day life. and this is the basic motif for see this special film.

I saw this movie at TIFF on Saturday. The Coens quietly (and I mean quietly - no-one could hear even their amplified voices) introduced the movie with reference to the actors present but not the movie, letting it speak for itself. And it did. In its own way. It is an off-beat (what else?) and serious work that radiates bleak despair while searching for a funny bone. In the process, the movie makes other black comedies look positively light and airy. The movie evokes laughs from a different place than most – from a profound discomfort watching people twist themselves this way and that to fit in and be regarded seriously, whether situationally, socially or religiously. A great piece of work that will have you thinking long afterwards, especially considering the odd and difficult-to-contextualize prologue and, um different, ending which bookend a remarkable work.

I still wonder why I have wasted my time on this movie, I mean this movie don't have a start and not an end neither. But most of all I am amazed that why this thing is nominated for Oscar!. I mean no doubt couple of performances are good but Man movie is nominated for best motion picture of the year. Best picture of the year !, are you kidding me!!! I mean come'on boy there has to be some story to be nominated for Best screen play nomination. Because as long as I am concern there was certainly no story behind those scene which I just watched. Well better luck next Ethan Coen because I witnessed one of the great movies by you "NO country for old men" and I am hoping for that stuff again from your side. Final verdict, don't waste your time !

You will read multiple reviews on this site extolling the intellectual and philosophical virtues of this film. Do not believe any of them. This is a film about the director and writer being sadistic...first to the protagonist in the movie, then finally to the viewing audience. The major problem with that is people are desperate to appear smart, so they have to see something deep and important in a movie. So the Coens gets all sorts of awards and praise for this incomplete, lazy piece of trash. Now they will go out and put even less effort in their next pseudo intellectual pile of stinky manure. There is nothing worth seeing here. I promise you this as someone that loves good writing, good stories and good movies.

I liked very much the ending. This movie describes life very well. So, it's a good story. But the execution is very poor. You have to endure 1 hour and half of utter boredom to gain yourself such ending. They didn't even try to entertain the audience, the movie is just a sequence of very sad things told with no emotion or empathy whatsoever. Now about the "comedy": there's no comedy at all, everybody should be warned about that. Nothing that balances the boredom and sadness. The Korean guy speaks funny, but that's it. And this is unfair for movie sold as "black comedy".