Release Date (UK) –20 November 2009
Certificate (UK) – 15
Country – USA
Director – Jole & Ethan Coen
Runtime – 105 mins
Starring – Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind and Frec Melamed

Larry Gopnik (Stuhlbarg) is a Jewish American university physics teacher whose life begins to run way from him after his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) decides to leave him for their friend Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). Meanwhile his unemployed and unstable brother Arthur (Richard Kind) has moved in with him and his two children are also spinning out of control – stealing money and avoiding Hebrew school.

The film is set in 1967, and has been regarded as almost autobiographical work from the Coens with its heavy focus on Jewish lifestyles and themes. Indeed the plot structure revolves around Larry’s attempts to seek out life advice from various Rabbis, starting with the junior and hoping to get to see the most senior Rabbi. However the misplaced and almost (if it were not for the Jewish themes) irrelevant coda at the beginning of the film and the sudden ending will leave many viewers wondering what the Coen brothers are trying to say here.

Personally I’m not a Coen brothers fan, they have a very distinct brand of humour that only really raises a brief smirk from me, but repeatedly made the Coen aficionados in my screening laugh out loud so if you usually love there dry black humour in films like Fargo and No Country for Old Men then you’ll probably consider this there best effort. For me the most hilarious scenes were with Larry’s son Danny, especially when he gets stoned to calm his nerves at his Bar Mitzvah. Released the same week as New Moon its an obvious intelligent alternative from this teen drama but to be perfectly honest I prefer the escapism of New Moon as this was just far too bizarre watching for me.