Tom Long: 'A Serious Man' -- Grade: A

Review: Comic calamaties collide with somber reality in 'A Serious Man'

Life is pain. Life is funny. Things happen randomly, with no purpose or reason that can be discerned. Searching for answers is futile. Enjoy what you can.

The philosophy behind the Coen brothers' films is hardly hidden. What's marvelous is the way siblings Ethan and Joel mix their misgivings into movies that on the surface seem to have little in common, and how consistently entertaining and challenging the results are.

"A Serious Man" may well be the funniest serious movie of the past decade, a tear-out-your-hair, pratfall-filled anxiety fest riffing on the Coen's youth as Jewish kids growing up in Minnesota in the '60s.

In contrast to their last film, the Oscar-winning "No Country for Old Men," it stars no one you've likely heard of and only a few faces you might recognize. And yet the dark clouds that hovered over "No Country" hover here as well, even coming into the open as the film ends.

These boys don't change their demeanor, they just change the window dressing.

Theater actor Michael Stuhlbarg stars as Larry Gopnik. After the Coens start off the film somewhat inexplicably with a traditional Hebrew ghost story, Larry -- father of two, good husband, math professor at a local college and faithful Jew -- begins getting slammed every which way.

He's up for tenure just as a Korean kid starts trying to bribe him to get good grades. His racist neighbor starts infringing on Larry's property. His tightly wound wife Judith (newcomer Sari Lennick) announces she is leaving him for another man, the older widower Sy Ableman (character actor Fred Melamed), who wants to help console Larry over the split.

Judith's departure can be at least partly explained by the presence of Larry's loser brother Arthur (Richard Kind) on the living room couch. Arthur, who needs to constantly drain a cyst on the back of his neck, is in an ongoing battle with Larry's daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) for bathroom time, since she has a never-ending need to wash her hair.

Almost forgotten in all this is Larry's bar mitzvah-approaching, pot-smoking, Jefferson Airplane-listening son Danny (Aaron Wolf), whose chief priority in life is watching "F Troop."

Luckily, Larry finds some solace in his nude-sunbathing, swinging-but-married neighbor (Amy Landecker). But that's not enough.

So Larry turns to the rabbis at his temple for wisdom and counseling. Unfortunately what he gets are platitudes, pointless anecdotes and an increasing level of frustration.

This is, of course, taking place in the '60s, and the tumult of the age is reflected in Larry -- the sexual revolution, drug culture and even homosexual oppression all step forward to add to the confusion. No wonder Larry's a mess -- everybody is.

Larry's just more of a mess. And while there's temptation to chide the Coens for beating up on the guy so fiercely, they do it so well and offer so many dark laughs in the process -- and tap-dance toward the ending so artfully -- that you forgive them. Heck, you applaud them.

All the unknowns here acquit themselves with honor. Stuhlbarg is the film's center and is being mentioned for an Oscar nomination, as is Kind (although that's a stretch). Equally, if not more deserving, though is Lennick as the severe but somehow sympathetically sexy Judith.

No matter what, the film as a whole will be a major contender come awards season, as it should be. "A Serious Man" balances light and dark while managing to be both a specific period piece and terrifyingly general evaluation of the sad sack human condition. It makes you laugh because you have to.

'A Serious Man'

GRADE: A

Rated R: For language, some sexuality/nudity and brief violence

Running time: 105 minutes

Detroit News Film Critic tlong@detnews.com (313) 222-8879 See Tom Long's video reviews at detnews.com/movies.