Critical response to the Coen Brothers is interesting. A lot of people appreciate their witty and artful style, but question whether there’s any substance to go with it. That may have been a valid point for quite a few of their films, but No Country For Old Men should have made abundantly clear that the Coens are serious men beneath their playful surface. That film, make no mistake, was about death, and tackled the subject with suitable gravitas even if some people got caught in the trappings and believed they were watching a thriller with a cop-out ending.

Now they’re back, and A Serious Man is another film that establishes them as perhaps America’s most consistently interesting filmmakers of recent times. And yes, as the title suggests, this is serious business. Mortality is once again under review, though the emphasis here is less on the end of it all than the fascinating matter of how to cope with the vagaries of existence, and whether the journey we take through life has any meaning or is merely a question of coping with randomness.

In the thick of it is Professor Larry Gopnik, who is not having an easy time. His wife’s affections have gone from him to widower Sy Ableman, universally respected in his (Jewish) community and understood to be in want of a new life partner. Even Larry acknowledges Sy’s moral authority, and — accepting that his marriage is at an end — moves into a motel with his hapless brother. Beset with gambling debts, and later accused of sodomy, Larry’s brother is in a real mess, and Larry would love to support him. The two men make an emotional connection in an abandoned swimming pool, a redemptive moment that seems to signal a new beginning…but things aren’t that simple in Larry’s life.

Seeking guidance — Larry is also contending with his son, who has joined a record club in his name; and a moral dilemma about what to do regarding a student who tries to bribe him after failing an exam — the professor turns to three rabbis for some hint of how to conduct himself. From one rabbi he gets nothing beyond a rambling yarn about a dentist who discovers that one of his patients has Jewish letters marked at the back of his teeth, a story which promises everything but is ultimately as baffling to the rabbi as the people he tells it to. Which leaves Marshak, the senior rabbi…and he only speaks to teens when they have their bar mitzvahs, spending the rest of the time in bearded contemplation.

It’s all too much for Larry, and he is left reeling about his place in the universe, his responsibilities, and what the meaning of any of it all may be. It doesn’t help Larry that his academic discipline is physics, and his particular fascination is quantum theory. In a world where seemingly anything can happen at any moment, with meaning ever-elusive if there is any to be found at all, how can a man rely on anything, and how can his family and community rely on him?

There are no answers, just elusive hints as to the pattern of reality. Larry has a car crash at the same time as one Sy Ableman dies in. Marijuana smoked with his foxy neighbour slows the universe down to a crawl and gives his mind a chance to roam, but no solutions are forthcoming. Is it any wonder the one rabbi is so taken with the story of the engraved teeth when life seems so resistant to revealing meaning?

All of which might sound mighty, well, serious. And it is, to a point. But remember too that this is a film from the Coen Brothers, and the big issues are wrapped in and around healthy doses of dark humour, visual splendour, and skilful use of music. A Serious Man is a fine film that makes me wonder all the more what the Coens will be creating for our delectation as they age and, perhaps, become more serious themselves.