Inside Llewyn Davis Review
By: MattInRC
Inside Llewyn Davis is your typical recent Cohen Brothers flick, which is why we don't like it.
The Cohen Brothers are certainly Hollywood's version of the lone wolf. Fiercely independent storytellers who refuse to follow convention, the duo write and direct their productions, a formula which has yielded tasty treats over the years. Fargo and Barton Fink are generally in most people's top 50 movies, while No Country for Old Men has to be on the 'I've seen it once' list of many. Unfortunately, more recent releases have not captured that energy or quirkiness, and Inside Llewyn Davis - while not terrible - is far less than we had hoped.
The 1960's singer Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is grumpy and bitter, stuck in a dead-end performance at a local Greenwich, New York club. Davis is experiencing a serious identity crisis, having recently dealt with his singing partner's suicide and struggling to set out on his own. The folk scene at this time is made up of an odd collection of barber shop quartets, medieval instrumentalists, and singers like Davis, whose arrogance and nomadic lifestyle have burned many bridges throughout the city. None of them is more upset than Jean (Carey Muligan), whose one-night-stand with Llewyn has produced an unwanted pregnancy. Rather than try to raise the child with Jean, Llewyn's arrogance and poor judgement continue to upset his career and personal life.
Throughout the film, his attitude yields nothing but bitter fruit: a studio gig with fellow singer Jim (Justin Timberlake) is productive but Llewyn squanders the cash to pay for Jean's abortion, a friend's cat escapes the apartment after he crashes there, forcing him to scour the streets for a replacement. He heads to Chicago to meet with publicist Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham), whom he's convinced will help revive his career; along the way, he meets the bulbous druggie Roland Turner (John Goodman) and the oddball driver Johnny Five (Garrett Hedlund). Faced with the prospect that his career might be over and having used up all of his sleeping arrangements, Davis must decide if he will return to the Merchant Marines or stick out yet another gig at the local club.
To say that noting happens in Davis is to give insult to the word. We get that the Cohen Brothers love to make oddly-arranged films, but they also seem to forget that movies need lead characters and situations to which audiences can connect. Davis is thoroughly unlikable, arrogant and full of himself, and willing to use others while ignoring the most basic needs of others. The script has a decidedly shallow nature to it, from the sailor-mouthed Mulligan to the drugged-out Goodman and the mumbling Hedlund. In the latter case, we could literally not understand any of his dialogue, which stopped being funny or unique soon after he appeared in Act 2. We couldn't generate empathy for any of the characters, a fact that perhaps the Cohen Brothers had intended. But their script is so devoid of any depth that watching the slow toilet swirl that is Llewyn's life gets very old, very fast. Again, we don't mind seeing more realistic stories being told around Oscar season, but this one just didn't connect.
Its only redeeming feature is the soundtrack, performed exquisitely by Isaac and others; in particular, Isaac shines each time he picks up his guitar, as if the two were made for each other. This angelic glow (and our tacit approval) quickly subsides though once the music stops and the Cohens attempt to pick up the story again. We're beginning to think that their classics O Brother, Where Art Thou and Barton Fink might represent their best work, possibly demonstrating that their best days might be behind them. At least those went somewhere and had some sense of direction. Spending a week with Llewyn Davis is a tedious exercise indeed.
We know that critics are raving about its merits, but we just don't see why. Inside Llewyn Davis is unlikable, brusque, and entirely too rough around the edges for us to recommend it. We've not seen a film like this in 2013, one that embarks upon a great idea but makes no headway towards that goal. In fact, the elliptical storytelling and self-deprecating humor achieves nothing but to confuse and bore mainstream audiences. When Llewyn callously abandons an orange tabby locked in a cold car with no keys - a cat he put there in the first place - our test audience made a collective groan, as if they (and we) suddenly had abandoned Llewyn at the same time. From there, it was all downhill; and while it might strum and sing its way to Oscar glory, that doesn't mean we're on that bandwagon. Inside Llewyn Davis is rated R for language and adult situations and has a runtime of 105 minutes.
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