It´s an amazing combination of drama and black comedy. This movie is about big themes as the meaning of life, knowledge, fate, love - but also about oddball moments in a human life. Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is high-school physics professor for whom the weight of the world has crashed on his shoulders. A Korean-born student Clive (David Kang) is just about fail his class - he understand stories like Schrödinger's cat, but he doesn´t understand maths. After he left Larry´s office, Larry found a thick envelope with great amount of money. When Larry came home, his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) informed him that they have to divorce, because she wants to marry Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). Sy Ableman is a funny character - a huge man who is speaking like a mother who works as psychiatrist.
And as a father of the family he has to solve his kids problems. His son Danny (Aaron Wolff) lives in a fear of his classmate Mike Fagle (Jon Kaminski Jr.) to whom he owes twenty dollars for marijuana. And his teacher confiscates his portable radio. His sister Sarah (Jessica McManus) is fighting with him because he stole these twenty dollars from her wallet. Sarah is avarage teen girl - who is not satisfied with her body - and she tenanciously wants nose job. She is also desperate because of her uncle who is all the time in the bathroom and she cannot wash her hair.
Uncle, Larry´s brother Arthut (Richard Kind) is living with them for a long time, he is sleeping on couch and obsessively writing in a notebook. He calls it The Mentaculus - determining the fundamental mathematical relationships that tie all natural laws together.
There is almost simultaneous situation of the car accidents of Larry and Sy, nevertheless they are few miles far - only one thing differs - Larry is alive but Sy is dead. Larry has to solve an absurd moment, because his wife wants him to pay for the funeral. The thing is that he has no money, because Judith took all money from their shared acounts.
He tries to find help in three rabbis, but none of them is helpful.
On the day of bar mitzvah Danny is high on marijuana and is struggling through the ceremony, but he overcomes his haze and is able to perform. Danny is lead into the senior rabbi´s office. The rabbi returns his radio to him with words "be a good boy".
He obtained a bill from the lawyer and decided to change Clive´s mark. After that his doctor calls him to make an appointment because of results of a chest X-ray. At the same time a massive tornado is approaching Danny´s school.
The film takes place in 1967 among a Jewish community in an unnamed Midwestern suburb. Midwest is the place where they grew up - so we can find similarity with their childhood. Locations are very important part of the picture. They decided to film in Minnesota. They were looking for an orginal - looking suburban houses as they would have appeared in St. Louis Park, Minnesota in 1960´s- Finally they have found suitable locations in Bloominghton. The look of the film is also partly based on a collection of photographs of Bloominghton in the 1950s and 1960s - Brad Zellar book: Suburban World: The Norling Photographs. Other locations: Normandale Community College (Bloomington), B´Nai Emet Synagogue in St. Louis Park, St Olaf College, Cooper´s grocery (St. Paul, Minnesota). It took 44 days to shoot this film.
As cinematographer worked Roger Deakins and it was his 10th film in collaboration with Coen brothers). Mary Zophers - the costume designer - worked one nine films with directors.
Music has been composed by one of my favourite film composer Cartel Burwell. You can see and listen his work on his website: www.carterburwell.com.
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