Highly fond of recent Coen Brothers efforts Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, and True Grit, I looked forward to their latest offering. Taking place in the pre-Dylan folk music milieu of early 60s Greenwich Village coffeehouses, Inside Llewyn Davis has much bark: it’s musical numbers–and insufficient bite: its story of a dour, shrugging sad sack intent on making it in the business yet quick to allow his quirky, self-destructive behavior to hold him back. The film certainly has its moments, including a spellbinding small turn by John Goodman, but I fail to share the extent of the love it’s been given by much of the critical establishment in vaunting it to the near top of the year’s releases in year-end polling.
“It’s not new music and it never gets old,” Llewyn (a sound Oscar Isaac) explains. Most of the songs performed are folk standards with Ewan MacColl’s “Shoals of Herring” (which Davis sings to his catatonic father) and “The Death of Queen Jane” standing out. “Dink’s Song: Fare Thee Well” is performed three times during the film, and a couple of Dave Van Ronk (who was the loose inspiration for the Davis character) tunes and a Tom Paxton song add to the mix. The film contains a Peter, Paul, and Mary take-off as well as representations of fellow folk scene hallmarks the Kingston Trio, The Clancy Brothers and Jean Richie. The latter two acts are referred to by Davis as “four micks and Grandma Moses”. His disdain for his performer counterparts, will, by film’s end, result in him heckling the Richie-like character and yelling out loud at her concert, “I hate fuckin’ folk music.” The film’s cleverest song, “Please Please Mr. Kennedy (Don’t Shoot Me Into Outer Space)” was also the one altered for the film from its original form as an anti-draft song. Similarly, heavyweight leftist folk singers of the time like Pete Seeger and Tom Lehrer, are nowhere to be found.
Kindly put, Davis’s human interactions are hit and miss. His sister keeps throwing him out after he curses in front of her kids, the girl he just got pregnant (Carey Mulligan) is hyper-pissed at him in no small part because her boyfriend (Justin Timberlale) is Davis’ friend and benefactor, who keeps finding Llewyn studio gigs; and make-or-break talent bookers (F. Murray Abraham as Bud Grossman, an obvious clone of legendary Albert Grossman) reject him. He also insults the wife of the uptown denizen and Columbia professor Mitch Gorfein (Ethan Phillips), not long after losing their cat, Ulysses. Ulysses will keep showing up in the film almost as frequently as Professor Gorfein and forgiving spouse Lillian (Robin Bartlett) inexplicably keep inviting Llewyn back. For this viewer, the Ulysses device came off as dull as it sounds.
Equally drab is the complete lack of drive on Llewyn’s part. It takes a nearly superfluous scene in terms of Llewyn’s story arc to enliven the proceedings as Goodman’s sardonic wild jazz guy spends the whole time trashing Davis. Unlike the lead characters in previous Coen films, such as A Serious Man,whose victimization wasn’t matched by an equally intense self-absorption, Llewyn seems to quietly revel in his rut. Perhaps that’s the Coen Brothers’ point.
Yet the feeling lingers that after the atypical-for-the-Coens runaway success of True Grit, the brothers may be engaged in a little purposeful, compensating obliqueness. As reticent as True Grit was straightforward, Inside Llewyn Davis, while effective in fits and starts, unfortunately takes on the personality of its lead character.