A Serious Man is an easy film to read into; this, the Coen Brothers’ fourteenth feature, is a profound and seemingly personal feature from the duo, dealing with personal and spiritual discontent under the tenet of a Jewish family in the midst of the counter-cultural upheaval of the late 1960s. The Coens have virulently refuted that the film is overtly autobiographical, but with the surplus of Jefferson Airplane blaring through the film, and one character (who is roughly around the age the Coens would have been in 1967) experiencing his Bar Mitzvah through a plume of weed smoke, it is an easy link to make. In the very least, this is surely indicative of a sense of time and place for the brothers; a time of profound change in the world.

Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a Jewish physics professor who suddenly has his life fall to pieces: his wife wants a divorce, citing their apparently evident problems, as well as confessing that she’s gotten close to a family friend, while a student of his attempts to bribe him for a better grade, then threatens to sue him for slander if he takes the matter to the Dean. What’s more, the University is receiving anonymous hate mail about Larry while he is trying to get tenure, and his wife has removed all of the money from their bank account, leaving him near-penniless and living in the Jolly Roger motel with his brother Arthur (Richard Kind). Larry cannot understand why this is happening to him, for he is trying to be a serious man and a diligent Jew, so he consults three Rabbis throughout the course of the film, each giving a different, equally esoteric explanation of the events while he tries to be pragmatic about his life.

Loosely based on the Jewish biblical story of the Book of Job, the Coens have brilliantly transposed the story onto a late-60s American landscape, superbly mounted amidst the most awkward transitional phase in recent American history, aptly reflecting the uncertainty and ambiguity of the time, while also being hugely entertaining thanks to the typical Coen quirks. Although not as laugh-out-loud funny as The Big Lebowski, the humour is nevertheless cutting, deriving largely from how frequently and how furiously Larry catches the wrong end of the stick, and in fact the film would probably have worked equally well as a cartoon: Larry’s woes are amusingly exaggerated to nearly interminable lengths, yet buoyed by the wry wit of the Coens.

Nevertheless, the film does begin with probably the most impenetrable opening scene of any film this year; in a 4:3 screen ratio, with subtitles, we observe an ancient Eastern European Jewish couple trying to discern whether the man invited into their home is a malevolent force or not, and if he is, what they should do about it. Entirely at odds stylistically with the rest of the film, and sure to prompt a few walk-outs, it nevertheless informs the rest of the film; does one attempt to find meaning in what is to happen, or simply try to temper the storm and survive it as best possible? This is a dilemma that Larry has to confront with the maelstrom of bad luck he is faced with, resulting in a scintillating house-of-cards climax that’s sure to frustrate many just as the close of No Country for Old Men did, but it provides one of the most riveting closing shots in recent memory, and packs a solid visceral punch.

The Coens always cast their films well, and A Serious Man is certainly no exception; Tony-award nominee Michael Stuhlbarg is largely unknown to film audiences, but here he delivers a knockout performance worthy of Oscar gold that’s sympathetic, at times amusing, and at others utterly tragic. While there is a cartoonish-ness to his stereotypical appearance (think Falling Down), Stuhlbarg’s performance is anything but, while the supporting cast members, chiefly Kind as Larry’s baffling brother, and Fred Melamed as the sedate widow who Larry’s wife is shacking up with, provide brilliant back-up.

Although there are existential themes permeating throughout, A Serious Man is by no means a dreary or heady effort; there’s plenty of offbeat humour, and one particularly amusing dream sequence that’s too delicious to spoil, making this a film easy to enjoy on the surface, but utterly fascinating to examine as an immensely textured drama. As an exploration of the period, it is robust and gorgeously photographed by frequent Coen collaborator Roger Deakins, while as a look at Jewish-American mores of the time, it is compelling and personal, while unobtrusively mediated by the Coens’ trademark humour. A Serious Man is one of the best films of the year; a Jewish American Beauty for the ages that’s immaculately performed and lovingly crafted, as well as arguably the Coens’ best film yet.