Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Winter 1961, New York. A folk singer finishes a song on a club stage and steps out into an alley. There, the film begins as he is soundly beaten by someone. And at the film’s end, we return to the same alley, the same beating. The Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis confines a musician’s week within this circular structure that returns to its starting point. The brothers regard, with their characteristic dry gaze, the story of a man who keeps sliding back from the threshold of success.

What it’s about — A nameless folk singer drifting from couch to couch

Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is a folk singer with talent who rarely sees the light of day. The partner he performed with as a duo has died, and his solo album does not sell. With no home and no money, he gets by drifting from the couch of one friend or acquaintance to the next. The film follows the few days in which he shuttles between New York and Chicago along with a cat he ends up taking charge of by chance. Even on the road in search of a new opportunity, Llewyn runs into walls again and again, and ultimately returns to the place he set out from.

Direction — Circular time that returns to where it began

The Coen Brothers draw this film not as a success myth but as a portrait of failure. The character does not grow, the situation does not improve, and the story ultimately returns to where it began. The brothers deliberately embrace a structure most films would avoid. The circular time Llewyn paces is a metaphor for the dead-end life in which he is trapped.

The cinematography is kept consistently in a cold, gray-tinged tone. Snow-covered streets, smoke-filled clubs, and the narrow hallways of an old apartment vividly revive the air of early-1960s Greenwich Village. Above all, the music is inseparable from the story. When Llewyn sings on stage, the performance is not a mere backdrop but a monologue that lays his inner life bare.

Performance — Oscar Isaac and the gap between on stage and off

Oscar Isaac drew immediate attention with this film. He plays a prickly, self-centered, never-likable figure while never losing sight of the loss and the stubborn pride hidden within him. The songs he sings himself sound like an extension of his acting. The gap between the sincerity he shows on stage and the curtness off it makes the figure of Llewyn three-dimensional.

Carey Mulligan leaves a brief but powerful impression as a former lover who pours out her fury at Llewyn. Justin Timberlake plays a diligent, stable fellow musician, showing another possibility of life in contrast to Llewyn. The small collisions the supporting cast generates make Llewyn’s isolation all the clearer.

What the film says — Talent does not guarantee success

Inside Llewyn Davis confronts head-on the bitter truth that talent does not guarantee success. Llewyn is clearly a good musician, but the era, luck, and his own temperament keep tripping him up. The film neither pities nor mocks him, simply showing the fact that some people vanish without ever seeing the light. At the film’s end, the silhouette of the next singer just stepping onto the stage Llewyn has left quietly hints at whom history remembers and whom it forgets, leaving a long resonance.

Ratings and reception

By the OMDb-sourced IMDb measure, the rating is 7.4/10. Its Rotten Tomatoes freshness is 92% and its Metacritic score is a remarkably high 93 out of 100. It earned recognition for its artistry by winning the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, and the discovery of Oscar Isaac along with the polish of the folk music running through the film were highly praised in nearly every review.

Verdict

Inside Llewyn Davis is not a film that delivers a clean catharsis. The protagonist goes unrewarded to the end, and the story returns to its beginning. But that very fact is what makes the film hard to forget. It plays not the exploits of the successful but the song of someone who never quite arrived. To this work, where music and feeling interlock perfectly, I give ★4.0.

Recommended for

• Those who love films that resonate deeply even when the ending is not tidy
• Those drawn to folk music and the sentiment of 1960s New York
• Those who enjoy the Coen Brothers’ signature dry gaze and black humor