Larry Gopnik is trying to lead a simple, serious life. He is a physics professor at a Jewish university, has a nice house in the suburbs, a wife and two kids, good health, and pretty much everything a Jewish man in Minneapolis in 1967 is supposed to have. For the most part things go his way and he is perfectly content. All of this, however, is about to change and Larry is going to face the very serious question: Where do you turn when things start to head south?

A Serious Man, the newest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, is a comedy, albeit it a dark one, with the premise of basically being Jewish and everything going wrong. Larry's comfortable little routine life slowly unravels from the very beginning of the film, starting with his life at home. His adolescent daughter, Sarah, concerned with little in life other than washing her hair and hanging out with her friends, is finding it more and more impossible to share the house, specifically the bathroom, with Larry's live-in brother, Arthur. Arthur is disabled and unemployable and Larry has taken it upon himself to take him in as he is family and he feels it is their responsibility to take care of him. Sarah clearly does not agree. His son, Danny, who is really only interested in buying LPs, getting high, and watching F-Troop, starts to replace paying attention at school with listening to Jefferson Airplane on his headphones which lands him in more trouble than he can handle with both his classmates and his Principal.

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