A Serious ManMovie Reviews

Poster art for "A Serious Man."

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Avg. Critic Score: 79 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
16 Iffy for 16+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 100
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    The movie is funny, definitely funny. But underlying the humor is a vision so bleak, so despairing and so utterly hopeless as to make "No Country for Old Men" almost look cheerful. Read full review

  • 100
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Have I mentioned A Serious Man is so rich and funny? This isn't a laugh-laugh movie, but a wince-wince movie. Those can be funny too. Read full review

  • 100
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    Writer-directors Joel and Ethan have seized the opportunity afforded by the Oscar-winning success of "No Country for Old Men," to make their most personal, most intensely Jewish film, a pitch-perfect comedy of despair that, against some odds, turns out to be one of their most universal as well. Read full review

  • 91
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    Working with affectionate mockery, the Coens take the cinder-block-synagogue banality of American Jewish life in 1967 and make it look as archly exotic as the loopy Scandinavian-American winterscape of "Fargo." Read full review

  • 90
    The New York Times | A.O. Scott

    The story is at once hilarious and horrific, its significance both self-evident and opaque. The same could be said of most of the Coen brothers' movies, in which human existence and the attempt to find meaning in it are equally futile, if also sometimes a lot of fun. (For us, at least.) Read full review

  • 88
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    This seriously funny movie, artfully photographed by the great Roger Deakins, is spiritual in nature, barbed in tone, and, oh, yeah, it stings like hell. Read full review

  • 88
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    A wonderfully odd, bleakly comic and thoroughly engrossing film. Read full review

  • 80
    Washington Post | Ann Hornaday

    May not be "Fargo," but it nestles comfortably somewhere beneath that masterpiece and "Miller's Crossing," yet far above such forgettables as "The Ladykillers" and "Intolerable Cruelty." Read full review

  • 80
    The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk Honeycutt

    The always surprising Coen brothers have finally made a very serious movie with A Serious Man. It's about God, man's place in the world and the meaning of life, so naturally it's one of their funnier movies. Read full review

  • 70
    Variety | Todd McCarthy

    One doesn't know how (auto)biographical any or all of this is, but there's a tartness to the telling of what amounts to a well-shaped series of anecdotes that bespeaks distant pain or, at least, wincing memory twisted into mordant comedy by time and sensibility. Read full review

View more reviews for A Serious Man on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 16+ Brilliant but bleak comedy for mature Coen brothers fans.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that the Coen brothers' A Serious Man features extensive useof marijuana (in some cases by pre-teen boys) and lots of profanity (from "f--k" and "s--t" on down the line). There's some sexual material as well (a distant view of a topless sunbather, a dream-sequence sex scene), and some brief but bloody moments of violence. The movie also offers viewers complex questions to ponder on the subjects of faith and religion.
  • Families can talk about the film's central question: Why do bad things happen to good people? Do our actions have consequences?
  • The film also offers great opportunities for discussion of the natureof religious belief. What questions does the movie raise about faith? Does it provide any answers?
  • What does this movie have in common thematically with the Coen brothers' other movies? What do their films say about the importance of morality and ethics in a world that seems to respect neither?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Amid the movie's acrid humor and mature subject matter is a good deal of food for thought -- if not a constructively positive take-away. The lead character struggles to do the right thing, and his actions have definitive consequences.
  • rolemodels true0 Positive role models: The characters here are all fairly flawed -- that makes them realistic, but it doesn't necessarily make them the best role models. The lead character makes an important moral decision and is found wanting; at other times, though, he demonstrates real decency and endeavors to do the right thing.
What to watch for
  • violence false3 Violence: Some violence, including a stabbing (with blood) in the prologue. There's also a shooting and a beating; these take place in dream sequences but are depicted with vigor and blood. The corpse of a hunted deer is also seen.
  • sex false3 Sex: A topless sunbather is seen from a distance; a dream sequence includes a sex scene in which a woman is wearing a bra and a man's bare chest is shown. Discussions of sex and infidelity.
  • language false4 Language: Constant, including "f--k" and its derivatives, "s--t," "a--hole," "pissed," "crap," "oh my God," and "Jesus." "Jew" is used briefly, presumably derogatorily.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false4 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Characters drink wine and hard liquor and smoke pipes and cigarettes. Marijuana is also smoked -- in some cases by 12-year-old boys -- and discussed extensively.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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