Two years after the box office and Oscar success of No Country for Old Men, the brothers Joel and Ethan Coen have delivered a quiet masterpiece to an unsuspecting public. Not that the brothers don't already have a history of unveiling the most unpredictable fare to follow up their successes. Big Lebowsky followed up Fargo. The Man Who Wasn't There followed up O Brother Where Art Thou? and last years Burn After Reading followed up No Country. Sometimes they were a cult favorite despite critics (see Big Lebowsky) or modest critical and box office success (Burn After Reading) or maybe the critics couldn't get much of anyone to see it(see The Man Who Wasn't There).

Which brings us to A Serious Man. Just when people think they have got the Coens pegged they do something they have never done before which is to draw upon their own middle class Jewish upbringing in the suburbs of Minneapolis/St.Paul. Sure this film has its expected quirks in the form of certain characters as well as its music cues and of course dream and drug sequences. This time, however, it hits closer to home.

Our protagonist is Larry Gopnick (Michael Stuhlbarg, primarily a stage actor) a seemingly well off Math professor around forty who is awaiting the results of his tenure application and trying to make time for his wife and two school age children (played by newcomers to film). The setting is Minnesota circa 1967. Enter the complications. His wife deciding to leave him for their friend Sy, an older man. An Asian student in the class leaves a money filled envelope on his desk in an effort to gain a better grade. Uncle Arthur (a terrific Richard Kind, of TV fame) has moved in and is getting into trouble. His sons in trouble and has an upcoming Bar Mitzvah. The list goes on.

Larry sequesters himself in a local motel and seeks help from three rabbis for his multiple problems. He also seeks help from his friend and lawyer (veteran character actor Adam Arkin). But rather than take the cheaper route of using our main character as the sole butt of Job like humor we see a thoughtful route formed in the films second half where the characters of Sy and Arthur provide a bit of perspective. Also great is Simon Helberg (TV's Big Bang Theory) as a junior rabbi offering a ridiculous parking lot analogy and George Wybert (Spaceballs and the Fletch films) as the Bar Mitzvah rabbi with a strange story he has shared maybe a few too many times. And the use of songs from the Jefferson Airplanes 1967 classic Surrealistic Pillow are quite effective. And the ending is a left hook that is pure Coen brothers so you have to see it for yourself.