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In A Serious Man, the Coen brothers offer a modern rendition of the Job narrative. The movie opens in Poland, with a Jewish man informing his wife about his encounter with an old friend. The woman assures him his friend died long ago, and is suddenly interrupted by a knock at the door; the husband had invited his friend for soup. After the wife’s skepticism grows during their dialog with the visitor, she suddenly stabs the man with an ice pick and he wonders out into the elements.

As abruptly as the first scene began, we are then taken to the year 1967. The main character in the movie is a physics professor named Larry Gopnik, who experiences the uncertainty and confusion placed upon Job in the Hebrew Scriptures. At school, he is approaching tenure, but somebody is anonymously writing letters to the tenure committee arguing against his promotion. In addition, a student who failed the midterm exam claims he received an unfair grade and proceeds to both bribe and blackmail Larry. At home, his wife suddenly demands a “get” – allowing her to divorce in the Jewish community and begin a new relationship with the widow Sy Ableman.

The confusion presented in the opening scenes continues as the rest of his family is introduced. His daughter is stealing money from his wallet for a nose job and is seems to be more concerned with her hair than her parent’s divorce. When he son is at school, he divides his time between listening to music during class and getting high. Finally, his unemployed brother has taken up residence at his house and often occupies the family bathroom to drain a growth on his neck.

As Larry’s wife, Judith, grows closer to Sy, she forces him to move into a hotel with his brother. Afterward, she clears the family bank account and presses Larry to proceed with the divorce.  In short, Larry is presented as a good man who experiences numerous bad things beyond both his control and imagination.

As a physics professor, Larry lectures on quantum mechanics, specifically the Schrödinger equation and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Schrödinger presented an interesting analogy about the uncertainty of very small systems: Imagine a cat put inside a box along with a radioactive flask. This radioactive material may kill the cat, but this information is unknown until the box is open. In essence, the cat is both alive and dead until examined – much like the duality found in the quantum world. This concept materializes when Larry and Sy each have a car accident at the same instant, but on different sides of the town. Larry survives the crash, but Sy is killed.

Larry is presented as a confused character throughout the movie, but continues to refrain from unethical action, much like Job. When his lawyer advises him to open a separate checking account, he questions if this is something he should do. When his neighbor, who often sunbathes outside naked, invites him inside her house, he does sleep with her (Larry is more righteous than King David in this story). When Judith insists he pay for Sy’s funeral, he consents.

At one point, an employee from Columbia House calls Larry at his office to collect a payment for his record subscription (something his son ordered). The employ explains that various records have been mailed to his house, specifically the album Abraxas by Santana. Larry breaks down saying, “Look… I didn’t ask for Santana Abraxas, I didn’t listen to Santana Abraxas, I didn’t do anything!” This dialog is not coincidental: Abraxas is a Gnostic term, which was used by Carl Jung to describe a being greater than God who incorporates both good and evil.

Eventually, Larry decides to turn to Rabbis for their advice, but their advice offers no consolation; they do not have the answer he seeks. Instead, he hears the tale of the Goy’s Teeth (gentiles teeth), which recounts a Jewish dentist finding a Hebrew message of “Help Me” on one of his patient’s teeth. After searching for the answer, he eventually forgets about his question and continues life as normal. This does little to console Larry because he is convinced only more bad luck will come his way: His wife left him for no reason (as if she knew things would soon get bad) and when Sy consoled him, he seemed to suggest more would come.

The story ends with his son looking at an approaching tornado, likely symbolizing Job as he looked toward the whirlwind to receive an answer from God. Much like the biblical story, the movie offers no clear conclusion.