REVIEW: Inside Llewyn Davis

Inside Llewyn Davis is the latest from esteemed directorial duo the Coen brothers, starring Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan and set to the backdrop of 1960’s New York. Nathan Harris reviews.

The film documents a week in the life of aspiring folk musician Llewyn Davis, struggling to stand out from the crowd in the Greenwich Village music scene, expressing the vapid moment of inhalation before Bob Dylan came in and blew everything away. All key performances are solid, bolstered by some ingeniously sharp dialogue.  Mulligan does well to keep up with the Coen’s uniquely funny comedic script, but Isaac is assuredly the focus. It’s always interesting to see such a stellar performance from an otherwise unknown actor and it’s to his credit that he holds the entire movie together through a nuanced and wickedly charismatic performance.

The narrative twitches about with the spontaneity and rhythm of Beat prose, structurally resembling the works of Kerouac or Burroughs and benefiting immensely for it. What are seemingly important and revelatory narrative strands are given all but a few seconds of focus, becoming some of the most poignant and thematically striking moments of the film. Perhaps the most brilliant thematic element is in a wayward cat Davies is forced to adopt and then carry with him throughout the majority of the film, which is tied up in the final act with a stunningly melancholy series of events. It’s refreshing to see a film that doesn’t make a big deal about some of its best assets, trusting that you’ll delineate the significance of them yourself. It’s when a movie is as understated as this that it is unequivocally the definition of cinematic ‘cool’.

The film is punctuated by several musical performances, and these sequences are given the gravitas and emphasis they deserve, and it’s in theses scenes in particular that Isaac shines. He is clearly a talented musician, but more impressive is that he still embodies the persona of Llewyn Davies within these scenes, still expressing the tragedy and sorrow of the character whilst performing. The music itself is undoubtedly brilliant making for a remarkable soundtrack, so good in fact that it’s possible to glaze over seeing Marcus Mumford as a writing credit within the liner notes. Not being any authority on folk music other than listening to a few early Dylan records, I can’t profess to know whether the film is truthful to its folk heritage, but I did find every rendition deeply gratifying. I never buy soundtracks but ordered this LP soon after.

There are some pacing problems however, as the road trip sequence involving John Goodman and Garrett Hedlund does begin to drag by the second gas stop but this issue is quickly abated. Another issue is that Justin Timberlake’s performance is acceptable but can be jarring at times, and it is not for lack of musical ability but rather style that his performances pale in comparison to those of Isaac. It’s also another example of how sometimes an actor can just be too outright famous for a small, defined role in an offbeat movie: most of the time he was on screen I couldn’t help but think of when he got Punk’d and cried, which did detract from the immersion of the film slightly.

Another area where the film may lack slightly is that it’s not that funny, but then maybe its not meant to be. It doesn’t boast the laughs of other Coen films such as Burn After Reading but has all the more depth and clarity of vision. It is funny in parts but it’s just hard to classify in a genre. It’s reminiscent of (and I don’t use this term lightly) a Shakespearean tragedy, set to the pulse of the 60’s New York folk scene. This is not to say that it needs classifying, but some moviegoers may get lost in what is largely a film about nothing. The archetype of the movie plot is equilibrium interrupted and then equilibrium restored, neither of which are prevalent in Inside Llewyn Davis but the film is all the more brilliant for that, simply portraying a week long snapshot into the life of a struggling folk singer. Again this emphatically ‘cool’ approach to storytelling may infuriate some, but if you embrace the passive manner in which the film often shrugs off some of its main plot points, you’ll succumb to its charm all the more.

Hitting the sweet spot between style and substance, the film is another triumph for the already proven directors, and another example in the school of cinema that gleams of an active audience in order to ascertain its true artistic merit. Wonderfully melancholy and cool to a fault perhaps, Inside Llewyn Davis has all the makings of a cult classic. It’s hipster as hell but fuck it, it’s great.