By Noah Redfield, Staff Writer

With their fourteenth film, “A Serious Man,” Joel and Ethan Coen have been putting their unique stamp on world cinema for 25 years, and I can say with absolute certainty that their latest offering is the strangest film they have ever made, but also one of their most compassionate.

This time, their subject is Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a Jewish college professor at the University of Minnesota in the 1960’s. His son is a misfit, his daughter wants a nose job, his brother can’t find a job, his application for tenure is in jeopardy thanks to a series of inflammatory letters, he has been blackmailed by a failing student and his wife is leaving him for another man. Other than that, he’s perfectly fine.

At their best, the Coen Brothers understand the age-old dictum that there is an extremely thin line between comedy and tragedy. Moreover, the test of whether a comedy is truly effective is if you can successfully transpose the exact same plot into a dramatic context. “A Serious Man” could easily work as an unrelentingly depressing character study but thankfully the Coens play Gopnik’s story for laughs, making his desperation all the more poignant.

Stuhlbarg portrays the hapless professor with the self-deprecation of Woody Allen and the pathos of Tevye, never lapsing too far in either direction. A newcomer to cinema (though a veteran of the stage), let’s hope he has a lucrative career on the silver screen in the future. He is supported by an equally terrific cast of unknowns.

“A Serious Man” is decidedly uncommercial, not simply because of its lack of star power. Despite its apparently authentic setting, “A Serious Man” is marked by a surrealist streak involving Jewish mysticism and Jefferson Airplane that prevents the wolf that is realism from getting too close to the door. As the Job-like Gopnik attempts to make sense of his suffering, he consults a series of rabbis, all of whom are comically incapable of explaining God’s will.

The film begins with a parable involving ghosts, an ice pick and Fyvush Finkel, which is nothing if not a Coen-esque red herring. Finally, those who were frustrated with the gleeful nihilism of “Burn After Reading” or the hopeless anti-climax in “No Country for Old Men” will surely be infuriated once again by Joel and Ethan’s unwillingness to wrap their latest picture up in a nice little bow.

Furthermore, “A Serious Man” is a Coen Brothers film for Coen Brothers fans. It has everything you look for in their work – offbeat characters, hilariously absurd dialogue exchanges, a resounding sense of cynicism – but has nothing that will bring in the uninitiated. Those who have accused them of misanthropy, however, will be pleasantly surprised by how affectionate they are towards their lead character. In many ways, he sums up their bleak worldview perfectly: He is stuck in an existential rut with the question of his essence looming over him like a black cloud. Either he can fight for the answer or accept its absence. It’s a quandary we can all relate to, and thank Yahweh we have the Coen Brothers to make us laugh about it.

Michael Stuhlbarg and Adam Arkin in a scene from the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man,” their fourteenth film. (Photo courtesy Focus Features)