"If I receive failing grade I lose my scholarship, and feel shame. I understand the physics. I understand the dead cat."

The description to A Serious Man (2009) does not serve the film justice. It's more than a story about a man wrestling with a wife who doesn't love him anymore, and the film goes off in so many directions that either help or hinder so much of the movie.

A Serious Man seems to be one of the Coen Brothers most underrated films of the 21st century, wedged between Burn After Reading (2008) and True Grit (2010), A Serious Man flies under the radar due to its time period and cast. It's the Coen movie with the least amount of "stars," the only one really being Michael Stuhlberg, who's biggest film to date was Body of Lies (2008) and he plays such a minor character in that. It's not foreign for the Coen's to cast a relatively unknown actor in one of the leads of their films, just look at Tim Blake Nelson for O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000).

The first two acts, especially the first one, is the strongest part about the movie, some of the best writing of the 21st century in a Coen movie, the scene especially with Stuhlberg and his student discussing the midterm grade might be one of my favourite scenes they've ever made, the writing and execution of it is flawless. But it's the third act in particular where I feel it falls off for me. There's much more wrestled with than just a man and his wife losing love and there's so much deviation from that which leaves us with so many unanswered questions, much like the ending to No Country for Old Men (2007).

There were a lot of characters that I really didn't care about that I know I was supposed but their characters and personalities were just so off-putting that even when they break the law I don't care, which I would've like to but didn't.

82nd Academy Awards — 2 Nominations, 0 Wins
Best Picture — Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Best Original Screenplay — Joel Coen and Ethan Coen