Old New Yorker

Here is David Denby describing the prevailing domestic setting of the Coen Brothers' new film, A Serious Man:

It's the suburban nightmare that keeps showing up in ambitious American movies as the banality of evil itself. The low ceilings, the schlocky décor are meant to be of a piece with the endless family bickering and emotional blackmail—satirically enhanced signs of mediocre, soul-punishing middle-class taste, Jewish division.

In the film, the suburban Home and Neighborhood setting is one o...