A Serious Man is a 2009 dark comedy written, produced, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The film stars Michael Stuhlbarg as a Minnesota Jewish man whose life crumbles both professionally and personally, leading to questions about his faith. The film has attracted a positive critical response, including a Golden Globe nomination for Stuhlbarg, a place on both the American Film Institute's and National Board of Review's Top 10 Film Lists of 2009, and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In a Polish shtetl in the early 20th century, a Jewish man, Velvel (Allen Lewis Rickman), tells his wife Dora (Yelena Shmuelenson) that he had been helped on his way home by Traitle Groshkover, whom he has invited in for soup. Dora objects, saying Groshkover is dead, and that this visitor must be a dybbuk. When he arrives, Groshkover (Fyvush Finkel) laughs off the accusation, but Dora plunges an icepick into his chest. Bleeding, he exits into the snowy night. In Minnesota in 1967,...