Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Inside Llewyn Davis (R)

"Assholes are like Elbows"

A textured look into the lives on the folk-singing scene of 1960's Greenwich village told as only the Coen Brothers can.  Llewyn is a talented, unsuccessful singer song writer couch surfing his way through obscurity.  He bums rides, beds, cigarettes and spotlights from his fellow New Yorkers, brushing elbows (and greatness) with the likes of Bob Dylan.  He is an insufferable fellow, unpleasant and narrowly selfish, a true starving artist who makes those around him also suffer the pangs.

Llewyn Davis is sometimes an over-the-top loathsome person, seemingly rude and uncaring.  His lovers despise him and curse his name, those that take him into their homes are rewarded with lost family pets and tirades at the dinner table.  Inspired by the autobiography of singer Van Ronk (one of Dylan's inspirations and fellow Village player), the movie is not a recreation but an artistic allegory about the soul of the universal struggling artist.  He plays beautifully but without his deceased singing partner no one listens.  His record producer is a skinflint with a guilty face, a roadtrip to Chicago to audition for the greats is a gloomy forboding affair, his attempts to quit the musical life are a fruitless endeavor.  Llewyn is fated to go unrecognized and unloved, forever trekking through the slush and snow in hole-filled shoes lugging his records and guitar from couch to couch.

Masterfully envisioned and executed by the Coen Brothers (Fargo, No Country), this is one of their perfect films if you have the right ears to hear its dulcet tones.  Their most invisibly surreal and foreboding film since Barton Fink (which also includes the great John Goodman, here as the music scene's Jazz conscience come to pass judgement), Llewyn is cloaked in a mantle of self-loathing that is thick with artistic unfulfillment (which only the curmudgeonly Coens can pull off while still being critical and box office darlings).  The visuals are their strongest yet most subtle, the film sticks with you.  The music is wonderfully rich and period specific, with a full range of Folk covered (from sell out comedy to protest impotency).  Seriously cemented in the Coen's underground oeuvre of self depreciation, Llewyn Davis hits some notes sour with a purpose, tweaks the strings of anti-sentimentalism, blows hard and stomps its feet yet performs no encores, all told through the perceptions of a man fated to repeat himself endlessly, chasing the suppers he can sing for.

9 Orange Tabby Cats out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)