Movie Trailer for Coen Brother’s A Serious Man

Joel and Ethan Coen are back with a new movie titled A Serious Man. Last fall the Academy Award winning directors brought audiences Burn After Reading. Before that was Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men, and it doesn’t appear these brothers plan on slowing down anytime soon. With A Serious Man the Coens appear to have created another dark comedy which is sure to confuse audiences. I am honestly not sure what to say after watching this trailer. It is almost to strange for words. The entire thing is set to the beat of a man’s head being bashed against a wall. The trailer is an odd use of images and repetition but no real point. The Coen Brothers are not known for being normal so we will have to wait and see. Continue reading to check out this trailer and a synopsis for the film via Apple.

I went ahead and put in Apple’s entire synopsis for the film. Typically I summarize the plot of a film based on the trailer and other details. With this movie I had no idea where to even start. The film doesn’t even feature any big name stars. I am a little concerned that this may be a tough sell to mainstream audiences. Read the synopsis below if you were as confused from that trailers as I was and then leave your impression below in the comment section.

“A Serious Man” is the story of an ordinary man’s search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and “F-Troop” is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous colleagues, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry. Larry’s unemployable brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny (Aaron Wolf) is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job. While his wife and Sy Ableman blithely make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry’s chances for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person – a mensch – a serious man?