Review of Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) by Robin W — 21 Apr 2014

The Coen brothers latest release Inside Llewyn Davis blends together many of the elements that have proved a success for them in various earlier works. A lack of redeemable characters, their signature dark offbeat humor, no apparent narrative and a very special genre of music in the soundtrack. The year is 1961 and Llewyn Davis is a struggling folk-singer who used to be part of a somewhat successful duo and is now trying to get his break as a solo artist. He's also a homeless drifter, who sleeps on whatever sofa becomes available and he's without a steady income. The film certainly paints the picture of rougher times, which produced big dreamers and resulted in deeper music with true passion.

Oscar Isaac deserves a lot of recognition not only for his acting, but just as much or even more so for his singing with which he even outperforms a big artist like, Justin Timberlake. I was amazed by how full of soul his singing actually was and how authentic his performance as Llewyn Davis was. Timberlakes acting performance is quite good in this film and his portrayal of a more conforming folk-singer named, Jim Berkley was great. Carey Mulligan has the role of Jim's highly cynical and very fiery wife and John Goodman plays an aged, eccentric Jazz musician named, Roland Turner. These two bring such dedicated and ranged performances to their roles and since this is really a character-based film the Coens have made sure that even the smallest part becomes a memorable character. The film follows Llewyn for a week and lets the viewer get to know him increasingly as he gets in to odd situations filled with the Coens signature offbeat humor, but Llewyn is a character who never really takes the moral, rational or admirable decisions, which should make him very hard to care for. The strange thing is that I still did as I got more and more engaged in Llewyns plight and that is what makes the film great in a very unconventional way.