A black comedy come drama movie, A Serious Man takes a not-so-serious look at one Jewish man's crisis of faith after his professional and personal life implodes. It shows what can happen when a person's orderly, well-arranged life can start to unravel and the subsequent emotional and practical disaster that can happen when the wheels start to fall off. Directed by the Cohen brothers, the film was a critical and a commercial success, garnering an Academy Award nomination for leading man Michael Stuhlberg in the Best Actor category, quite a feat for anyone but especially for an actor who was largely unknown before appearing in the film; he received a Golden Globe nomination in the same category. The movie also stars Adam Arkin, of Chicago Hope fame, and Academy Award nominee Michael C. Lerner.
The Coens spent a great deal of time trying to find the perfect location for the home that they had envisioneded for their protagonist, Larry Gopnik. They worked hard to find the archetypal 1960s ranch-style home in Minnesota, using photo journalist Bob Zeller's book Suburban World as their visual inspiration. Filming did not exactly interrupt life in suburban Minnesota; it was completed in a speedy forty four days.
Ethan Cohen felt strongly that the film should open with a Yiddish folk tale, like the ones that they had been told as children by their rabbi and religious education teacher, but they were unable to remember any of them well enough to relate, and so they made up their own in the style of the mysterious spiritual leader of their youth.
The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2009 and was released on limited release across the United States in October. It was listed as one of the top ten best films of 2009.
