Movie Review: "Inside Llewyn Davis" (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 2013)

STILL STRUMMING: “LLEWYN DAVIS” IS A MUSICAL MASTERPIECE

by Bennett Campbell Ferguson

 

 

 Left: Oscar Isaac and a cat

 

A silver microphone outlined sleekly in shadows; a bearded man lightly singing; an audience applauding with unexpected enthusiasm.  Those are the first images we see in “Inside Llewyn Davis.”  They’re snapshots of a performance at New York’s Gaslight Theater by the movie’s titular hero (Oscar Isaac) and under the soft, faded lenses of Bruno Delbonnel’s camera, his beauty is unmistakable.  But that doesn’t matter.  For though “Llewyn Davis” is visually wondrous, it’s a tale not of artistic triumph, but of drifting ambivalence and painful coincidences.

            In Llewyn’s case, “drifting” is a literal state of being.  Trying to make it as a folk singer in Greenwich Village (the film is set in the 1960s), he compensates for his lack of income by performing in cafés and couch-surfing with both friends and strangers.  In principle, Llewyn is proud of this penniless artistry (he scorns the comfortable domestication embodied by his sister Joy).  Yet we soon realize that depression is creeping up on him.  Llewyn may be devoted to his music, but he is also deeply weary, so much so that when he sings, his voice has a distracted, searching quality, as if he were floating out of the moment and into oblivion.

            You should know that the film has a similar nature, thanks in main to the estimable writing and directing of Joel and Ethan Coen.  Early on, they offer surprises (like Llewyn’s discovery that a former girlfriend has born his child) that tease the possibility of a melodramatic and inspiring narrative.  But that never happens; instead, Llewyn spends most of the story failing those who help him the most, including an older couple (Ethan Phillips and Robin Bartlett) whose cat he loses and a sickly man (John Goodman) whom he abandons by the side of the road.

            To be sure, any reality that includes such occurrences can’t help but feel bleak.  Yet there is a magnificence to “Inside Llewyn Davis,” and not least because of its bumbling hero.  Yes, Llewyn is a fallible and often cruel character, but there’s something oddly likable about him; even when he’s forced to leave the aforementioned cat alone in a car, the grim resolve etched on his face renders him both callous and sympathetic.  And it certainly doesn’t hurt that the Llewyn’s surroundings are smoothly easy on the eyes as well; from the green-walled bathroom he visits on an elegiac road trip to the snowflakes that fly by as he drives through the night, the film is never anything less than immense in its visual poetry. 

            Of course, that poetry depends on what you hear as well as what you see.  The music is of “Inside Llewyn Davis” is certainly excellent (T. Bone Burnett’s “Please Mr. Kennedy” is the film’s standout song), but the sound effects by Skip Lievsay are remarkable as well.  Against all odds, he’s devised a sonic signature for cars whizzing by that is markedly different from the masterful oral auto cues that Richard Beggs created for Sofia Coppola’s “Somwhere.”  In that movie, spotless vehicles roared dully, exuding a keening blast that evoked the film’s theme of soul-numbing isolation.  But tuning into the nimble grace of Llewyn’s world, Mr. Lievsay imbues each passing car with a well-rounded, airy whirr that feels at once gentle and all-encompassing.

            It’s details like that that make “Inside Llewyn Davis” so thoroughly watchable.  And that’s quite an achievement, considering how much the movie tests you.  To be honest, there were moments when its deliberately uneventful narrative made me hunger for something dramatic or romantic to happen.  For instance, would it have been too much for the Coens to let Llewyn make out with his gorgeous and foul-mouthed sparring partner Jean (Carey Mulligan)?  Maybe, but in the midst of the film’s ambling realism, I wouldn’t have minded a little emotional warmth and, frankly, a happy ending.

            Then again, “Inside Llewyn Davis” is not exactly unhappy.  At times, the film seems to suggest that life is tragically pointless, especially since it begins and ends with the same sobering scene (Llewyn being beaten in a shadowy back alley).  And yet, it is hard not to be cheered by the movie’s eloquence.  Why?  Mainly because the Coens conclude by suggesting is that existence is not comic or tragic, but instead sad, strange, awkward, bizarre, and, why not, very cool-looking.