First things first: Shame on the Academy!
Seriously.
Nine movies nominated for Best Picture, and there's not room for Inside Llewyn Davis? Not even a screenplay nomination? I hate using the term "travesty" to describe missed Oscar nominations, but if the word ever applied, it does here.
Alright, now that I got that out of the way, let's talk about this wonderful movie.
I'm almost at a loss for what to write here. That's probably why it's taken me several days to finally sit down and put this post together. It's not that I don't understand the movie -- I'm at least 75 percent sure that I get it. And, it's not that I'm having trouble describing the story. The problem, I suppose, is that the film contains so many subtleties and nuances that I feel like any review I give of it is going to be vastly incomplete by comparison.
Oh well...what're you gonna do?
Put simply, Inside Llewyn Davis is about the art of giving up. Or, to put it another way, it's about giving up on art.
Llewyn Davis (played by Oscar Isaac), the titular (sort-of) hero of the piece, is a folk singer working in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s right before Bob Dylan arrived on the scene and put it on the map. The movie tells the story of one week in his Sisyphean effort to find fame and success in the music business. This one week is either the most important week of his career -- the one where he decides to let it all go -- or it's the same as every other week in the endless cycle that is his life. If you see the movie, you'll understand why it's not entirely clear which one it is.
Llewyn is a talented fellow, though he's no Bob Dylan. He's also a bit of a jerk. But, you have to feel for the guy -- his singing partner recently committed suicide (voiced in the music by Marcus Mumford). The sadness from this loss hangs over the whole movie and Davis's whole character. Still, that doesn't fully justify the way he treats people.
For example, he mooches off of fellow musicians, he's rude to even his most supportive friends, he heckles other performers, and he impregnates other people's girlfriends, including Jean (played by Cary Mulligan). In one pivotal early scene, he lets a cat escape from a friends apartment where he's crashing. Oddly, this is the only lapse in courtesy that seems to trouble Llewyn at all. Indeed, he spends half the movie either holding onto the cat or trying to chase it down.
Davis's story is essentially a folk tale, told by the Coen Brothers with their trademark whimsy-induced nihilism. It is equal parts real and surreal as he travels through New York to Chicago and back again, singing songs and encountering various fairies and monsters along the way. These creatures, of course, take human form, but that doesn't make them any less enchanting and/or horrifying.
There are the kind creatures -- some of the other musicians (played by people like Justin Timberlake and Adam Driver), the kind scholarly couple that end up being his biggest supporters, and Llewyn's sister and nephew. And, there are the terrible ones -- the music promoters, the club owners, the union bosses, and John Goodman playing a heroin-addicted jazz musician. Llewyn's biggest problem is that he's unable to hide his disdain for the nice people he encounters and he's not talented or charming enough to win over the others.
Because this is a Coen Brothers movie, you know from the beginning that things aren't likely to turn out well for Llewyn. The fun part is finding out how they're going to test and torture him along the way.
There are two scenes that stick out in this regard. The first is when he auditions for Bud Grossman (played by F. Murray Abraham), a famous club owners and talent promoter in Chicago. He plays a song titled "The Death of Queen Jane," and he plays it beautifully, singing his heart out, the last verse acapella. It's a beautiful moment...until Grossman reacts. The second comes when he plays another song for his convalescing father. Again, the music is wonderful and Llewyn's talent is on full display. But, his father's response is, to put it lightly, probably not what he's shooting for.
The music plays a huge part of this movie, not unlike an earlier Coen movie, O Brother Where Art Thou. Artists perform whole songs throughout the film, and the vast majority of them are performed live right on film. Not only is this my favorite movie of 2013, the soundtrack is my favorite album of the year. I want to curl up and live inside the music from this movie.
While the story of the film is generally cold and unfeeling, the music conveys far more warmness emotion than you're used to from a Coen-produced movie. Indeed, the music allows the movie to give the audience a fuller emotional experience. As a result, this is, quite possibly, the Coen's best, most complete work to date.
Much of that stems from the Isaac's performance as the title character. His performance is a master-class in acting, not only in how he plays through the character's different layers, but in how he soulfully performs the music (he does all his own singing and guitar playing). With a lesser actor, Llewyn could have just been a sarcastic jerk. With Isaac in the part, we get to understand all the sources of his melancholy and his inability to connect even with people who love and support him. His failure to get an Oscar nomination for this part is another "travesty."
All in all, this is just a staggering film. In terms for where it fits in the Coen Cannon, I'd say that it's a fair cross between O Brother Where Art Thou and A Serious Man, sort of a illegitimate offspring of those two vastly different pieces of work. Like O Brother, this is a surreal journey with characters that are a little too archetypal to be fully realistic. Plus there's the music. Like A Serious Man, this movie a ponderous look at a character being run through the existential ringer only to come out even worse on the other side. And, like that film, it benefits greatly from repeat viewings. In other words, go see this movie...and then see it again.
Like I said, Inside Llewyn Davis may very well be the best Coen movie yet. Whether that's true or not, it is, in my opinion, the best movie of 2013.
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