YMMV / A Serious Man

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: You could count most of the film as one of these: it's a kaleidoscope of angst-ridden Jewish whimsy. It's the accumulative effect of the recurring verbal symbolism (including the first scene^in-depth The film opens up with the story of a Jewish couple and a rabbi who may or may not be a dybbuk (a reanimated spirit in Judaism). This is not mentioned again afterwards; it's supposed to give a demonstration of the film's conflicts (faith vs. reason, etc.).) that gives the film depth. At a shallow glance it just seems like one utterly random scene after another, doubly so for the dream sequences.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: The film has led to countless discussions and essays attempting to interpret its moral philosophy, religious significance and ultimate deeper meaning.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • A common interpretation of this movie is that it is, at least in part, a modern retelling of the Book of Job from the Old Testament. How does Job end? God appears to him in the form of a whirlwind. Doubles as Viewers Are Geniuses.
  • As discussed here, excluding the prologue, the first and second half of the film are reflections of one another.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Michael Stuhlbarg listening to the story about the goy's teeth. Four years later he appeared in Blue Jasmine, where he plays a creepy dentist who claims to be able to understand people by their teeth.
  • This wouldn't be the last Coen Brothers production Michael Stuhlbarg would be in as an overwhelmed Jewish man.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Despite the absence of random acts of Ax-Crazy violence, this is still arguably one of the scariest of the Coens' films due to its thematic implications: bad things happening to good people for no reason, and the suggestion of a God who is either both merciless and utterly incomprehensible or who doesn't exist at all.
  • The prologue. Though nothing openly frightening happens, it's left a lot of viewers very uneasy.
• One-Scene Wonder: The extras casting in this film is absolutely pitch-perfect, and most of the minor characters only flit in for a scene and then disappear, so there are a lot of these.
• Spiritual Successor: To Barton Fink, another Coen Brothers movie about an ordinary shmoe who suffers a parade of events ranging from unfortunate to terrifying for no discernible reason.

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