A Serious Man Trailer

[angelophile]

Here's a curiosity. The trailer for the new Coen Brothers movie, entitled A Serious Man and starring... well, a bunch of people I never heard of. In fact, I don't recognise anyone in this at all, which may be a good sign. After a glut of movies with big Hollywood names, this appears to be a very small scale production and, oddly, is only getting a limited release in October. Now, you'd think a movie by a directing team that won Best Picture a couple of years back and have a few Oscars and other awards under their belts would warrant a wide release, over, say, Hotel for Dogs, but maybe that lack of star power went against them. Or maybe it's deliberate. Who knows?

Anyway, the synopsis goes:

"The story follows an ordinary mans 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, a physics professor at a quiet midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous colleagues, Larry's unemployable brother Arthur is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job. 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?"

It all sounds a little... odd, but that's what the Coens excel at. I'm curious about this one. It'll be interesting to see if this can wash the taste of the brilliantly performed but unsatisfying duo of No Country For Old Men and Burn After Reading from my mouth. It'd be nice if they produced the new Fargo about now. The trailer, however, just makes the whole enterprise seem even more peculiar. But that's Coen Brothers movies for you. If you can tell what the hell is going on after reading a synopsis and watching a trailer for one of their movies, they're doing it wrong.