Coen Brothers month: Inside Llewyn Davis

A review by Brooks Rich

I separate the Coen's filmography into three categories. The films that are the least of their works for one reason or the other. Just something about them doesn't work. Films like Intolerable Cruelty, Hudsucker Proxy, and Ladykillers. Then there are the good to great films, the ones that are really good but aren't their best. Films like No Country For Old Men, Blood Simple, Barton Fink, and True Grit. Then there are the masterpieces. The best they have to offer. The ones that define who they are. Films like Fargo, Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, and this. Inside Llewyn Davis is a masterpiece.

It's hard to describe the plot of this film. Essentially it's a week in the life of a struggling folk singer in Greenwich Village in February of 1961. He has been in a low spot since his folk partner killed himself. Oscar Isaac imbues Davis with a real-world cynicism. He is kind of an asshole but we understand why he is. Everything goes wrong for him. It's almost like the Coens are adapting the story of Job again like they did in A Serious Man.

There are two Coen films centered around music, this and O Brother, Where Art Thou. The music here is more of a character though. Llewyn is defined by his music. At the end of the day, it's all he has and unfortunately, his window to be successful might have already closed. This is one of the Coen's bleakest films, even though there is this atypical bittersweet humor running throughout the film.

This film works best if you know how the Coen's wrote it. They structured it like a folk song, so the beginning and end bookend each other. This is a film for cinephiles but I think it's one of their strongest films and possibly their best film since 2010.

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