In Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coen Brothers take us back to the Greenwich Village folk scene just before the emergence of Bob Dylan. Oscar Isaac plays a talented folk singer who is always a day late and a dollar short – and it’s all his own fault. His self-absorption sabotages his career and his relationships. Unfortunately, to paraphrase The Wife leaving the theater, we don’t care enough about the protagonist to root for him, and he’s not hateful enough to make us root against him. And that’s why Inside Llewyn Davis isn’t a great movie. (In contrast, Sideways is a great movie about another guy who is making his own bad luck – but we care about THAT guy.)
What Inside Llewyn Davis does right is to take us back to the Village in 1961 – the music is great and so are all the period details, Oscar Isaacs is quite good, and there are some stellar turns by Justin Timberlake, F. Murray Abraham and character actor Stan Carp as Llewyn’s senile dad. And Inside Llewyn Davis is often very, very funny.
Inside Llewyn Davis was perhaps the most critically praised film at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival and is on the Best of 2013 lists of most critics – but not mine. It’s watchable for the period and the humor, but the main character just doesn’t engage us enough.
I liked this even less than my dear husband. I didn’t fine it very, very funny. I did laugh out loud a few times, which is something. But most of the time I was just wondering “what is the point?”. I didn’t care for any of the characters.
I find myself offended when movie makers like the Coen brothers make a movie like this, with some wonderful actors and the makings of a good story, and don’t deliver. They are far too talented to not give us a better movie.
Since when did the Coen brothers become such misanthropes? Webster’s dictionary defines such a person as on “who hates or distrusts humankind” and that seems to fit the vision from the Coen brothers in their last few films – it’s so disappointing when I thought that their early promise was inspiring – now I’m re-evaluating their early films and trying to figure out if they’ve always been this way or whether something has changed…
Can’t argue with you. I love Blood Simple and Fargo, which also took a very dim view of human nature, but seemed more leavened by the Coens’ wicked humor than their more recent work.