Time has allowed some introspection to creep into my (admittedly tardy) review of the Coens’ latest opus. The only thing I couldn’t seem to muster is a take on the pre-title sequence—surely one of the most audacious and baffling openings in recent history. If anyone has any theories as to the meaning of this Yiddish ghost sketch, I’d love to hear them. But more to the point:

If Joel and Ethan Coen are truly artists and not just skilled tricksters, then A Serious Man is a major work. Gutsy in its refusal to console its audience with tidy answers, it is a profoundly uncommercial work that locates spiritual anguish in a mundane Minnesota suburb, circa 1967. (The Coens were teenagers there.) There are few actors onscreen that audiences might recognize, and fewer characters for whom to cheer. The torrent of existential angst flows unchecked, and the gross interest in bodily foibles reaches a career-high peak. (It has been hotly debated whether the Coens are self-loathing of their Jewishness or merely embarrassed. How about cheerfully sardonic?)  

The film is bitingly serious at heart despite keeping up appearances as a comedy, and uncommonly whiney, too—a cry of despair over the futility of life. The protagonist (Michael Stuhlbarg), a frustrated physics professor whose life starts to crumble around him, is elected for his ordinariness, his everymanliness. He seeks the help of three rabbis who offer him no succor. The only solace he is able to find is in the dubious refrain that he’s done nothing wrong.

Does the film say anything new about the human condition? I don’t think so. But then, the Coens have never been terribly original on that front. (Only Fargo still surprises with its insight into human behavior.) It’s their microscopic attention to detail that betrays a philosophical core. Putting insurmountable pressure on their characters, watching intently for what they will do, is their method of teasing out the Big Questions. And as master caricaturists they have developed a unique way of framing those questions. A Serious Man is not an easy movie to warm to, but it goes where few movies dare to do what all art should do.