The BBFC have granted the Coen’s latest a 15 certificate for the below reasons (WARNING contains spoilers);

A SERIOUS MAN is a black comedy set in the US Midwest in the late 1960s. The central character is a Jewish physics professor, Larry Gopnik, who seeks guidance from his rabbis when his life begins to fall apart. The film was passed ‘15’ for strong language and soft drug use.

The BBFC Guidelines at ‘15’ state that there may be frequent use of strong language (for example ‘fuck’). This film includes in the region of sixteen uses of that particular term. The work also contains two brief scenes of marijuana smoking. In one a group of adolescent youths share a joint and in the other Gopnik is offered a joint by a female neighbour. Moreover, in a comic sequence at the very end of the work Gopnik’s son, Danny, is clearly suffering from the effects of marijuana use during the course of his bar mitzvah. However, these scenes are acceptable at ‘15’ in this case as the film as a whole does not promote or encourage drug misuse.

A SERIOUS MAN also includes a fantasy love scene in which Gopnik is seen lying on his back on a bed as his female neighbour straddles and gently rides him. There is no nudity and the portrayal of sexual activity is sufficiently brief and discreet to have been allowed at ‘12A’. Earlier in the film we see the same female neighbour sunbathing naked in her garden. She is seen in long shot and very little detail can be made out. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual context at ‘15’.

When submitted to the BBFC the work had a running time of 105m 21sThe running time of this film was calculated from the measured length of 9481+9 ( feet + frames ).