Orlando Lens
The Coen Brothers may be the most self-assured directors in American cinema today. They've proven adept in multiple genres (comedy, drama, and various hybrids) and have earned enough respect both critically (many Oscar nominations, several wins) and commercially (True Grit was a massive financial success, as was No Country For Old Men) that they can write their own ticket. The ticket they've chosen to write for the 2013 Awards season is Inside Llewyn Davis, a character study of a down-on-his-luck folk singer in the New York City folk scene of 1961, before Dylan and well before folk mated with rock later in the 1960s. The film functions, in some ways, as a less overtly funny (but equally clever) thematic companion piece to another high-quality 2013 film, Frances Ha. Both feature protagonists with big dreams and small realities whose misadventures as a result of their poor choices lead to epiphanies. That's not a spoiler, folks, that's a genre. Both films have a specific, interesting relationship with New York City and its denizens. And both films speak to the difficulty of living the life you want. But only Inside Llewyn Davis has an incredible performance by an orange tabby.
Inside Llewyn Davis opens today at the Enzian and some area multiplexes. Rated R for language including some sexual references. Run time 1 hour 44 minutes.
By Nicholas Ware
The Coen Brothers may be the most self-assured directors in American cinema today. They've proven adept in multiple genres (comedy, drama, and various hybrids) and have earned enough respect both critically (many Oscar nominations, several wins) and commercially (True Grit was a massive financial success, as was No Country For Old Men) that they can write their own ticket. The ticket they've chosen to write for the 2013 Awards season is Inside Llewyn Davis, a character study of a down-on-his-luck folk singer in the New York City folk scene of 1961, before Dylan and well before folk mated with rock later in the 1960s. The film functions, in some ways, as a less overtly funny (but equally clever) thematic companion piece to another high-quality 2013 film, Frances Ha. Both feature protagonists with big dreams and small realities whose misadventures as a result of their poor choices lead to epiphanies. That's not a spoiler, folks, that's a genre. Both films have a specific, interesting relationship with New York City and its denizens. And both films speak to the difficulty of living the life you want. But only Inside Llewyn Davis has an incredible performance by an orange tabby.
Two performances anchor the film. The first is, indeed, the orange tabby that is a catalyst for many of the bad decisions that Llewyn, a dirt-poor guitarist, makes. I am being in no way hyperbolic when I say this cat could be nominated for Best Supporting Actor and it would be deserved. The cat (whose name becomes a thematic clue later in the film) has an expressiveness captured by the Coens and, I assume, induced by highly talented animal trainers that carries the film's first 30 minutes and creates one of its most oddly funny and tender moments. Those odd, funny, tender moments have become a Coens staple, and several moments of weird in Inside Llewyn Davis create a delicious ambivalence. Llewyn himself encapsulates this. He is simultaneously soulful, righteous, boorish, incompetent, and lovable. Oscar Isaac, in a performance that ought to launch a leading-man career, gives Llewyn a powerful sadness behind his bluster, and despite his general unpleasantness it's easy to root for his success. It's Issac's performance that anchors the rest of the film, as the recognizable actors (Justin Timberlake, John Goodman, Cary Mulligan) shift in and out of the narrative. While the cult of personality is often strong, it ends up being very satisfying to see the movie stars leave the frame and let the lived-in actor push a fully-realized character forward.
The narrative rumbles forward, not unlike the folk songs that populate the film. While some of them are non-diegetic, many are also performed by the actors on screen, including a wonderful performance to cap the second act by Isaac. The Coens' love of different American music periods was on display in their popular O Brother, Where Art Thou? and is continued here, but by placing folk and early American music in the context of the cultural period between the Beats and the Hippies, the Coens manage to give their musical choices (as usual, in collaboration with T Bone Burnett) a dual focus. The music, like Llewyn, bring ambivalent tones from joyous and funny to despondent and cooks the story from a simple James Joyce-style journey into a more fully realized meal.
The biggest criticism of the film is that it doesn't treat its female characters very well. The only two women characters who seem to have significance are Jean (played by Cary Mulligan) and Llewyn's sister, and both are not shown in the greatest light. Though, to be fair, neither are most of the film's characters. Even so, it would have been nice to see a little more light on the edges, especially from a female character, if only as a contrast to Llewyn's sadsackery. Aside from this, Inside Llewyn Davis is one of the best films of 2013 that I have seen and is a must-view for any cinephile, music fan, or moviegover who is willing to feel a barrel of feelings at the same time. While the ornery middle-aged couple who sat next to me in the screening might have thought the film "a bunch of bullcrap," I can assure you it's not. Rather, it's a Hall-of-Fame filmmaking duo doing the film they want while at the top of their game.
Inside Llewyn Davis opens today at the Enzian and some area multiplexes. Rated R for language including some sexual references. Run time 1 hour 44 minutes.