Set in 1967, the film is a suburban Jewish family drama about a man, Larry Gopnik, whose life has suddenly gone from mundane, but content, to far from simple: his wife is asking for a divorce, his son is smoking marijuana and is more concerned with music than studying, his daughter only cares about her hair and saving up for a nose job, his brother is camped out, unemployed, on his sofa and one of his students is trying to buy his grades. With everything going awry he seeks solace in his Rabbis – only to be put into a state of confusion between common sense, car parks, logic and, er, teeth.

It’s the refusal to take the film on easy high-comedy paths and the easily identifiable characters that makes the film so appealing - it’s not out for obvious laughs, although it is full of humour. It also isn’t, in the classical movie sense, a story with a beginning, middle and end but rather a snapshot of a point in a family’s life. Larry is the kind of man who will take a lot of crap before he finally snaps. You watch him throughout the film being palmed off, ditched on, ignored and taken for granted and ‘though he gets close to blowing a fuse a couple of times, he never quite gets there. Confused by his myriad problems he just seems to keep asking, and rightly so, ‘Why ME?’ as opposed to having a breakdown.

A strong point of the film is also that although the Coen Brothers can get a-list stars, they have opted for a relatively unknown cast. A lot of the characters look kind of familiar but you’re not quite sure where from. Michael Stuhlbarg, playing Larry, is well up to the challenge of his first leading role and Fred Melamed is excellently annoying as Larry’s wife’s new love interest.

So, between a man on the edge, a son getting stoned for his Bar Mitzvah, a somewhat sociopathic neighbour and a bizarre clip at the beginning (I haven’t a clue how it fits, but it’s there and it’s funny) - this is not a serious film, this is the Coen Brothers doing what they do best.

A Serious Man is playing at Broadway Cinema until Thursday 3 December

A Serious Man website

A Serious Man