If you put together a list of best/most important modern American directors, the Coen Brothers are pretty damn close to the top of that list. Their films have run the gamut from absurdist comedy to violent crime caper, and any pair of filmmakers who could count works as diverse as "No Country For Old Men", "The Big Lebowski", "Raising Arizona", "Fargo" and "O Brother Where Art Thou" are surely people to keep your eye on. Their last film, an update on the John Wayne classic "True Grit" featuring a nearly unrecognizable Jeff Bridges in the John Wayne role was a tour de force and one of the more underrated and under appreciated films of the last 5 years or so. (It got subsumed in "King's Speech" madness) However, despite their obvious brilliance, the Coen's have never been filmmakers to subject themselves to industry or audience expectations, and are just as happy to make a mad cap comedy (say, "Burn After Reading") or understated character study/biblical allegory ("A Serious Man") as they are to make the type of serious drama that traditionally dominates awards season.
Enter: "Inside Llewyn Davis", a film that centers on the New York City folk music scene of the early 1960's, and the titular Llewyn Davis, a talented but ornery struggling musician barely eking out a meager living and relying on the generosity of friends as he tries to find success and deals with the recent loss of his songwriting partner.
The Good: Rarely, if ever, have a seen a more true to life depiction of the tortured artistic soul that seems just as likely to create depressed melancholy as it does genius. This isn't an uplifting or inspiring tale of success against unlikely odds or a rise to stardom, it's a portrait of a person, a time, and a place that's important mainly for its very ordinariness. Oscar Isaac's (to this point, a rather minor actor with a career full of supporting performances - but a lead role in the new Star Wars film and this one could signal a coming breakout) performance is, in a word, stunning. The understated charm, musical chops, and sarcastic bitterness masking as humor is the kind of quiet, muted performance that is unlikely (and didn't!) to gain attention from the academy, but it's exactly this kind of performance that makes a film timeless. There are Llewn Davis' playing drop in gigs and open mics in every city in the country, and their trail of bitterness and failure is infinitely more likely to be the outcome than is stardom. The rest of the cast is solid as well, with Justin Timberlake (who's actually a pretty good actor, you guys) and the always solid Carey Mulligan standing out, with Coen staple John Goodman contributing a memorable and bombastic extended cameo as well. Visually, the film is stunning and a bit disarming, choosing a muted palate of drab colors and dull lighting to give the film a cold and smoky feel that seems to complement the understated folk soundtrack perfectly. Of course, this being a Coen bros. film, there's the trademark dark and absurdist humor that plays out both situationally and via dialogue. When it wants to be, this is a very funny film.
The Bad: if anything, this film is TOO muted and TOO slow for its own good. It's like a lazy winter Sunday encapsulated into film. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but it explains why the film escaped the notice of many when it came time for year-end accolades. While I ultimately was a fan of the narrative (or lack thereof), I can see why the film had its detractors.
Ultimately, if you're a Coen bros. fan, a musician, someone who knows or is interested in either musicians or folk music, or a fan of muted and occasionally very funny character pieces, you could do much, much worse than checking out the Coens' latest, one of the more underappreciated films of 2013.
8.5/10.
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