Review 303: Inside Llewyn Davis
The film is inspired by cultural disconnection within a New York–based music scene where the songs seemed to come from all parts of the United States except New York, but whose performers included the likes of Brooklyn-born Dave Van Ronk and Ramblin' Jack Elliott.
It is Febuary 1961, Llewyn Davis (Oscar Issac) is a struggling singer. Guitar in tow, huddled against the unforgiving New York winter of 1961, he struggles to make it as a musician against seemingly insurmountable obstacles - some of them of his own making.
The plot is excellent. The Coen Brothers really touch upon a popular cultural time people were going through. Before then people were more traditional and catholic in their tastes and then pop and folk music came round and peoples tastes began to float outside the box.
Not only is it a beautifully made yet somber film it's also a film about Artistic Ambition, Compromise and Despair.
Artistic Ambition: To quote Independent Magazine; Davis has a certain amount of talent... but probably not enough. He keeps on hustling and has the initiative to eke out a little money from a recording session
It's also very true about human nature:
It's a very realistic film, the characters don't feel like traditional period characters they feel like real people, people we can relate to even today. I have always enjoyed films that have realistic characters because they always make it easier for us as an audience to identify with them.
Inside Llewyn Davis is also about fate and how it can tear us as human beings: Llewyn Davis's life doesn't get better and it doesn't get worse, it stays... neutral and it shows how situations can go from bad to even worse in a persons life.
Its takes us as an audience back to a time long passed: The films urban, cloudy and vacant environments give a great sense of emptiness and nostalgia which is nessicary to show the past but adds a sense of nostalgia to the peice as well as emphasise that we are not living in this period anymore.
The Coen Brothers direction is precise, the cinematography is beautiful and captures the bleak, cold environment of 1961, the production design (recreating the 1960's) is gorgeous, the costumes are majestic, the make up is rich, the props are well crafted, the scenery is breathtaking, the soundtrack, produced by T. Bone Burnett no less, is splendid and the ending was magnificent.
The acting is superb, Oscar Issac is terrific here, his role as a struggling singer is truly moving and really makes us care for him as a character and he really sells the film. Plus the journey he takes is quite fascinating.
His costars however do not lag that far behind, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, Garrett Hedlund, Adam Driver, F. Murray Abraham and John Goodman all deliver excellent performances with Mulligan in particular
giving the best performance other than Issac, she presumably had an affair with Davis and she hold a grudge against him for that.
Ultimately what I really liked about those performances was that they really gave us a sense of what people were like back in the early sixties, they have no money, they rely on each other and are living on opportunities.
Inside Llewyn Davis is a remarkable period, comedy drama and a sign that The Coen Brothers are still on fine form, 5/5.
The Anonymous Critic.
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