A Serious Man/YMMV

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• Non Sequitur Scene: 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.).

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) 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.

• 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.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Despite the absence of random acts of violence or Ax Crazy Complete Monsters, 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 both merciless and utterly incomprehensible.
  • To a lesser extent, the prologue. Though nothing openly frightening happens, it's left a lot of viewers (including this troper) very uneasy.
• Role Association:
  • One of the rabbis Larry consults is Wolowitz / Moist.
  • Larry's brother is Mr. Korman the hypochondriac. He's also Paul Lassiter in Spin City!
  • Another one of the rabbis is Colonel Sanders!
  • Reb Groshkover from the opening is Douglas Wambaugh.