Film review: Inside Llewyn Davis

It’s not a great place to be, inside Llewyn Davis. It’s 1961, and the titular folk singer is trying – and failing – to earn some money and appreciation on the Greenwich Village music scene in New York. His former bandmate has thrown himself off a bridge, his dad’s near catatonic in a nursing home, and Llewyn has been reduced to kipping on friends’ sofas because he’s homeless.

To top it all off, he’s gone and lost the cat he was meant to be looking after for some elderly friends. The only thing the depressive musician does seem to be successful at is impregnating women during short and unhappy flings, which further adds to his money worries as he has to keep stumping up for abortions.

The Coen brothers’ film strums along with a few days in Llewyn’s loserish life. He does some stuff – records a song, goes on a road trip, visits family – but it’s all fairly inconsequential. The film is less concerned with plot than with contemplating the hard knocks the music business deals to an aspiring artist and the themes of failure and rejection this invites, as well as the hapless singer-songwriter’s dysfunctional interactions with friends, family, ex-lovers, fellow musicians, promoters and randoms.

Top billing, though, goes to the music itself, with what narrative there is frequently pausing for Llewyn and co to deliver full-length folk numbers. A couple of them, including a delightfully silly novelty song, come from Justin Timberlake, in very unusual musical territory, playing the husband of Llewyn’s most recent disgruntled lover (Carey Mulligan).

Quirky characters are the mainstay of the Coen brothers’ work, and their regular collaborator John Goodman pops up again in an amusing cameo as a loquacious junkie who makes a drive to Chicago much longer than it should be. Mulligan is suitably sweary among the myriad misfits that make up the scene, while Ethan Phillips and Robin Bartlett, as elderly academics the Gorfeins, provide the sole emotional warmth.

Llewyn himself is too gloomy and withdrawn to be a memorable Coen character – he’s no dude. Nor is he particularly likeable: struggling artists may feel some sympathy as indignity is heaped on frustration, but he brings much of his misery on himself, missing the opportunities and snubbing the chances of redemption that come his way.

But despite the morose protagonist and bleak wintry landscape that’s as hostile to him as the music business, the movie is often funny, thanks to Goodman’s well observed and colorful performance and the plot strand that sees Llewyn struggle to look after the Gorfeins’ cat, as well as some good lines.

Overall, though, the laughs give way to sadness at the artist’s lot. It is summed up perfectly in a scene where Llewyn has managed to persuade a big-cheese Chicago promoter to allow him an impromptu audition. After a few agonizing moments when you think he is going to choke, he comes out with a touching folk ballad, beautifully performed. The camera slowly homes in on the promoter, who seems impressed, and it appears Llewyn might have got his big break. Then the promoter says simply, “I don’t see any money in this.”

Director: Ethan and Joel Coen