“Inside Llewyn Davis” stars Oscar Isaac as Llewyn Davis, a folk musician in 1960’s Greenwich Village, struggling to live day-to-day. The film shows a week in Llewyn’s life, watching him stay on an endless slew of couches. He works to make ends meet, while still trying to keep his dreams of being a musician. His partner has committed suicide, and Llewyn is trying to adjust to being a solo act. He takes a trip to Chicago with a silent poet (Garrett Hedlund) and a loudmouthed jazz musician (John Goodman) in order to perform for a prominent manager (F. Murray Abraham). Other supporting cast members include Jim and Jean(Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake), a folk duo which consists of a bitchy woman and her naive husband, Troy Nelson(Stark Sands), the quintessential country boy, Al Cody(Adam Driver), a folk singer with a deep bass, and Joy(Jeanine Serralles), Llewyn’s disapproving sister. The film is written and directed by Ethan and Joel Coen.
I was really excited for this film. The Coen Brothers are two of my favorite directors. “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” is one of my favorite films of all time. The movie got a lot of buzz after its debut at the Cannes Film Festival. The soundtrack of this movie was being produced by T-Bone Burnett, who previously collaborated with the Coen Brothers on “Oh Brother”. It is sure to be an Oscar contender this year. I had high expectations for this film.
This film met my extremely high hopes, making one of the best films of the year. It was brilliantly made. Everything from the writing to the editing is spot on. All the acting performances are great. Oscar Isaac is great as the jerky Llewyn Davis. His character is a terrible person to uses everyone he meets to his own personal advantage. Yet, he is still able to convince the audience to feel for him. Isaac’s performance has a charisma that almost makes you forgive all of Llewyn’s terrible actions. He walks the line between a nice guy and a complete a**hole.
Every single actor is trying their hardest to make this film great. John Goodman is hilarious as a man who can never shut up (That man deserves an Oscar nomination and win eventually). Stark Sands plays his best Kenneth Parcell-esque character. Adam Driver’s sound effects makes “Please Mr. Kennedy” the funniest song in the film. Jeanine Serralles provides a contrast between the showbiz world and real life which is needed for the film.
Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan play off each other really well. Timberlake is the one who is never home, forcing Mulligan to have conversations with Llewyn. While Mulligan appears to be an angel when on the stage, offstage, she bitches and yells at Llewyn about how terrible a person he is. Mulligan’s character also sleeps her way around the city, and even gets pregnant, while Timberlake is unaware.
Llewyn also has a cat who comes in and out of his life throughout the movie. This kind of storytelling is what we have come to expect from a Coen brothers film. The human-cat dynamic is very quirky in this movie.
The Coen brothers directed this film so perfectly. All of the visuals perfectly capture the look of the 1960’s. The entire film has a dark color palette, which perfectly captures the struggles in Llewyn’s life. The script is beautifully written. In usual Coen brothers fashion, it walks the carefull line between comedy and seriousness. The cinematography was stunning. The Coen brothers departed from their usual choice of Roger Deakins,in favor of Bruno Debonnel. Debonnel uses subtle amounts of shaky-cam, not crazy amounts (cough,cough, HUNGER GAMES, cough,cough) , but just enough to add a sense of realism to the film.
The music may be the best part of the picture. As stated above, T-Bone Burnett produced the score for the music. However, there is little background music up until a performance. This adds depth to all of the songs. The songs are all strongly performed. All of the actors do their own singing, and they are truly great musicians. The songs vary from the melancholy “Death of Queen Jane” to the hilarious ” Please Mr. Kennedy”. The Coen brothers use music to help tell the story, with each song adding to the mood of a scene.
Honestly, I cannot think of a flaw for this film. There were minor things, but nothing worth noting. This movie just spoke to me on a deeper level. It told a deeply emotional story with much gravitas. I see it as a very good companion piece to another Coen film, “A Serious Man”. That movie tells the story of a Jewish man whose wife leaves him as his life falls apart. They both feature a character going through Job-like trials of life and are shot in a melancholy fashion.
Overall, “Inside Llewyn Davis” may be a perfect film that I want to return to see multiple times.
“Inside Llewyn Davis” opens everywhere this Friday. All photos courtesy of CBS Films.
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