A physics professor in 1960s Minneapolis turns to a series of rabbis for advice when his life starts falling apart at the seams in this thoughtful comedy from the Coen brothers. Michael Stuhlbarg heads an excellent cast refreshingly free of Hollywood heavy-hitters as Larry, who has just learned that his wife (Sari Lennick) wants a divorce. Meanwhile, he's fearful of not being granted tenure at college, his socially maladjusted brother (Richard Kind) is in the bathroom draining his cyst, and there's worse to come... This has elements of wicked farce as calamities pile upon the hapless, Job-like protagonist, but primarily it's a reflection on the ways we try to understand a world that so often seems to be having fun at our expense. Rigorously controlled, perhaps at the expense of a little emotional light and shade, this is one of the Coens' subtlest films. Expect smiles, grimaces, a slightly furrowed brow, and, finally, a feeling of satisfaction that here is one film whose circuitous storytelling and off-beat wit is worth sticking with.

It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous acquaintances Sy Ableman.