A Serious Man (15)

BAD things happening to good people is just not funny.

Except when Lucie got kicked off X Factor. Oh yeah, and when Richard Hammond went jogging and knackered his ankle.

OK, OK then, it's hysterical. And Joel and Ethan Coen know it. Nearly all of their films have some luckless sod making one mistake, which sends them cruising up S*** Creek with a paddle the size of a modest toothpick.

A Serious Man takes that classic Coen formula, transplants it to the 1960s US Midwest, and puts a refreshingly uncelebby twist on it (the most recognisable face in the cast is Cousin Andy from Curb Your Enthusiasm).

The end result is a brutal, troubling, raven-black comedy with more polish than the stock cupboard at Piers Morgan's dentist.

It's 1967 and humble Jewish college prof Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) wakes up one morning to find his life falling apart.

His idiot brother (Richard Kind) has come to stay, and is spending most of his time draining a cyst on his neck.

His wife (Sari Lennick) has been having an affair with his oily sod of a best pal Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), an instant classic Coen monster. One of his students tries to bribe him for better grades. And a mysterious letter-writer stitches him up over a promotion.

His only perk is spying on the minx next door (Amy Landecker) sunbathing naked - although given it's the 1960s, her personal grooming is worse than Hagrid's chin.

Larry wants to work out why things have gone so wrong, so he visits three rabbis, all of whom are stunningly unhelpful - offering nowt but weird folk tales with no apparent link to Larry's own problems. And naturally, the film's no more helpful. Witness the bizarre intro, where a 19th century couple living in Eastern Europe kill a man who may or may not be a Jewish undead ghoul. (At this point we learn the word for a Jewish undead ghoul is "dybbuk". And I'd always thought it was "Joan Rivers".)

Is this supposed to be Larry's distant family, triggering a curse that won't bite until 100 years later in suburban Minnesota? Or is it just a Joel and Ethan wind-up?

Could be either, could be neither.

But the point is, Coen diehards like me will be in heaven with all this double-dealing.

And while the plot might not have the epic sweep of No Country For Old Men or be the comedy bloodbath of Fargo, this film is every bit their equal.

It's very . . . Jewish. It's also very, very well- written and boasts some award-worthy lens- tweaking from godlike director of photography Roger Deakins (the individual shots of the bar mitzvah and the bit where Larry tries to fix his TV aerial are little works of art).

Oh yeah. And the final scene's one of the greatest and most deliberately mental payoffs to a film this year.

Not one for those enraged by No Country's weird little dream ending, perhaps. But for those who loved it, like everything else in this tight, perfectly-honed film, it's a complete delight.

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