Inside Llewyn Davis
Directed by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Written by: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Justin Timberlake, Adam Driver, Garrett Hedlund, Ethan Phillips, Robin Bartlett, Stark Sands, Max Casella, F. Murray Abraham, Jerry Grayson
Drama/Music - 105 min
Written by: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Justin Timberlake, Adam Driver, Garrett Hedlund, Ethan Phillips, Robin Bartlett, Stark Sands, Max Casella, F. Murray Abraham, Jerry Grayson
Drama/Music - 105 min
Just as the Coen Brothers saturated O Brother, Where Art Thou? with early bluegrass folk tunes, they infuse Inside Llewyn Davis with late ‘50s-early ‘60s Greenwich Village folk; the time and place that spawned Bob Dylan. Unfortunately, Llewyn is no Dylan as he struggles to find any kind of audience foothold which is just as challenging as finding another couch to crash on tonight. According to Llewyn, non-show business civilians merely ‘exist’ in the world; what he is too self-centered to notice is that is exactly what he is doing in the week in his life the film chronicles, just trying to get on through.
Modelled not after Dylan, but on the lesser known Village denizen Dave Van Ronk, Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) is a staple at local folk clubs, freezes outside waiting for any drop of royalties from his latest record, and he quickly wears out his welcome with those who let him camp out in their living rooms. His most important souring relationship is with Jean (Carey Mulligan), married to his good buddy Jim (Justin Timberlake). At some point during one of his many couch-surfing stints, he got Jean pregnant. Llewyn also strains his relationship with an upper-crust pair of professors who like to show off their connection with a real life hippie.
Llewyn feels time is running out. He’s tired of being homeless, tired of waiting for his career to take off, and tired of being cold and tired all the time. This is 1961, nobody had any idea the Greenwich Village folk scene was primed for takeoff. Ducking out of town to Chicago to audition for the one guy left who can still make it all happen, Llewyn is ready to succeed or to let it all go and settle down with a steady job and start existing. As he struggles through what is very likely the most miserable week in his entire life, Llewyn crosses paths with a drug-addled and very opinionated New Orleans jazz man, Roland Turner (John Goodman), his near mute driver (Garret Hedlund), and various struggling folk singers also trying to make it (Adam Driver and Stark Sands).
Similar to the Coen Brothers’ 2009 film, A Serious Man, misery and adversity accumulate higher and higher on Llewyn’s shoulders. Some of the problems are definitely his own doing, but he has his fair share of bad luck and random misfortune as well. Roland Turner threatens to curse him with some Santeria voodoo; however, Llewyn is already cursed. As he drives, hitchhikes, and stumbles toward his destiny, Santeria could at least provide some extra warmth.
Casting Oscar Isaac as Llewyn was a high-risk/high-reward Coen Brothers’ move. Julliard trained, Isaac plays his own guitar and sings with his own voice. His performances are not a quick few seconds to establish a scene either. Llewyn plays full songs of four to five minute length at various times throughout the film. It’s tricky when this happens in movies, but Isaac sounds better than Dave Van Ronk does playing the same songs. The Coens pay homage to a very specific time and place here and they put their trust in an actor in his first leading role; we have the pleasure to watch him knock it out of the park.
The music Llewyn and others sing, put together with the help of T Bone Burnett and Marcus Mumford, resonate with the audience and will be remembered and hummed long after the end credits. Carey Mulligan also makes another noticeable impression. Her role as Jean is to needle and scold Llewyn for not turning into the steadfast and reliable man she thought he would become. Jean gets the best line of the movie with a very original insult, “Everything you touch turns to shit; you’re like King Midas’s idiot brother.” The metaphor is mythological, yet it contains a lot of truth. John Goodman channels the loud and heavy-handed aspects of his bible salesman/Cyclops character from O Brother and delivers an effective supporting performance as the jazz man who scoffs at the folk singers; jazz musicians at least use all the notes.
Llewyn exists in a time between ages. The old is shuffling out the door to make way for the new, but nobody quite knows what the new is yet. We exist in a similar time today. Technology and interconnectedness are closing the door on the age most of us grew up in. Take solace in Oscar Isaac’s performance. Here is an actor sitting on a stage, picking guitar strings, and doing it all in a single take; it’s analog with no click track. Llewyn is a man for all ages.
Modelled not after Dylan, but on the lesser known Village denizen Dave Van Ronk, Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) is a staple at local folk clubs, freezes outside waiting for any drop of royalties from his latest record, and he quickly wears out his welcome with those who let him camp out in their living rooms. His most important souring relationship is with Jean (Carey Mulligan), married to his good buddy Jim (Justin Timberlake). At some point during one of his many couch-surfing stints, he got Jean pregnant. Llewyn also strains his relationship with an upper-crust pair of professors who like to show off their connection with a real life hippie.
Llewyn feels time is running out. He’s tired of being homeless, tired of waiting for his career to take off, and tired of being cold and tired all the time. This is 1961, nobody had any idea the Greenwich Village folk scene was primed for takeoff. Ducking out of town to Chicago to audition for the one guy left who can still make it all happen, Llewyn is ready to succeed or to let it all go and settle down with a steady job and start existing. As he struggles through what is very likely the most miserable week in his entire life, Llewyn crosses paths with a drug-addled and very opinionated New Orleans jazz man, Roland Turner (John Goodman), his near mute driver (Garret Hedlund), and various struggling folk singers also trying to make it (Adam Driver and Stark Sands).
Similar to the Coen Brothers’ 2009 film, A Serious Man, misery and adversity accumulate higher and higher on Llewyn’s shoulders. Some of the problems are definitely his own doing, but he has his fair share of bad luck and random misfortune as well. Roland Turner threatens to curse him with some Santeria voodoo; however, Llewyn is already cursed. As he drives, hitchhikes, and stumbles toward his destiny, Santeria could at least provide some extra warmth.
Casting Oscar Isaac as Llewyn was a high-risk/high-reward Coen Brothers’ move. Julliard trained, Isaac plays his own guitar and sings with his own voice. His performances are not a quick few seconds to establish a scene either. Llewyn plays full songs of four to five minute length at various times throughout the film. It’s tricky when this happens in movies, but Isaac sounds better than Dave Van Ronk does playing the same songs. The Coens pay homage to a very specific time and place here and they put their trust in an actor in his first leading role; we have the pleasure to watch him knock it out of the park.
The music Llewyn and others sing, put together with the help of T Bone Burnett and Marcus Mumford, resonate with the audience and will be remembered and hummed long after the end credits. Carey Mulligan also makes another noticeable impression. Her role as Jean is to needle and scold Llewyn for not turning into the steadfast and reliable man she thought he would become. Jean gets the best line of the movie with a very original insult, “Everything you touch turns to shit; you’re like King Midas’s idiot brother.” The metaphor is mythological, yet it contains a lot of truth. John Goodman channels the loud and heavy-handed aspects of his bible salesman/Cyclops character from O Brother and delivers an effective supporting performance as the jazz man who scoffs at the folk singers; jazz musicians at least use all the notes.
Llewyn exists in a time between ages. The old is shuffling out the door to make way for the new, but nobody quite knows what the new is yet. We exist in a similar time today. Technology and interconnectedness are closing the door on the age most of us grew up in. Take solace in Oscar Isaac’s performance. Here is an actor sitting on a stage, picking guitar strings, and doing it all in a single take; it’s analog with no click track. Llewyn is a man for all ages.
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