The Coen Brothers 2013 USA
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Adam Driver, Justin Timberlake
Inside Llewyn Davis, Joel & Ethan Coen's latest tale of alienation and gradual reveals, shares a lot with their past work, not least in a pitch-perfect recreation of a particular era, an appreciation of the loser and in creating a seemingly unpleasant, oddly-named character and turning them into a highly quotable potential cult hero - Walter Sobchak, Anton Chigurh, Carl Showalter, the list is pretty much endless. Here, Davis is an arrogant, confrontational folk singer who lives on other people's sofas and is irritated by practically everything, his lips curling into a sneer at regular intervals. He'd be unsympathetic if he weren't so unlucky, and I mean the unluckiest man in the world burdened as he is with a pregnant (and married) lover who appears to sincerely dislike him, no home or career, constant ridicule and an accidental pet cat that looks increasingly more terrified at the situation than he is. When he's picked up mid-film by Garrett Hedlund's near silent beat poet/driver and John Goodman's formidable, story-telling jazz musician and threatened with a voodoo curse you sort of wonder how he'd notice the difference. And yet the film is very funny in a lot of ways (one of the best being the sight of the tiny Carey Mulligan cursing and spitting insults like a vitriolic sprite) and genuinely poignant, particularly in the audition scene where Llewyn plays his heart out only to be told "I don't see a lot of money here" and advised to reunite with his (dead) partner. Later he tries again in front of his father and receives an even more negative reaction. It's such that by the end of the film you're right there with this disagreeable man and can fully understand his crestfallen exasperation, you even want him to succeed. It's an eye-opening performance from Isaac, both in filmic and musical terms, and he really acquits himself incredibly well in the latter (supervised by the great T-Bone Burnett), as do Mulligan, Driver, Timberlake and Stark Sands. But of course the Coen's compassion doesn't mean there's necessarily going to be a happy ending, talent sometimes being unable to fully overcome human inadequacy
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