(Tue 19th - Thu 21st / 8pm / £4/3)
(Joel and Ethan Coen / USA / 2009 / 105 minutes / Cert 15)

Oscar winning Joel and Ethan Coen explore the plight of a man whose innate goodness and quest to be fair and just are severely put to the test in this hilarious allegory of one man’s all too human struggle. Larry Gopnick is assailed by disrespect, a family that only takes advantage, a wife seeking divorce for no real reason, and a student attempting to blackmail him. He wants sanity but gets only the short end of the absurdity of life in a suburb that is itself a parody. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person -- a mensch -- a serious man?

The Coen brothers working with a superb cast of actors from the Yiddish theatre are at their finest as dry, trenchant, and sharply witted chroniclers of the unfairness of it all and how familiar it is to all of us.