There are times in life when everything seems to occur at random or “just happen.” In "Inside Llewyn Davis" we meet Llewyn Davis, a man who lives in this perpetual state.
In what might be their most melancholy film yet, the Coen brothers document the life of a man who never quite failed, but never quite made it. Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is a drifter/musician who travels from couch to couch and from the house of an annoying Columbia professor to the apartment of a woman he might have gotten pregnant (Carey Mulligan). Llewyn’s a man not really living as much as he is existing, but he never has a strong opinion about it. Sure, he gets angry, sometimes he gets excited, but you never feel it in his actions or see it in his face. Instead, Llewyn chooses to trudge quietly through his life. He lets outside forces affect him as he watches from a distance. It’s safe to say that Llewyn’s defeated, but he’s too indifferent to be depressed.
The Coen brothers’ style of random events are prevalent in "Inside Llewyn Davis", but they feel muted. There is no single event that defines the film like "Burn After Reading" (2008), and that subtle feeling works to the film’s atmosphere of constant motion. Llewyn’s life has a distinct rhythm to it. Although he tries to break it with auditions and recordings, he falls short of achieving success or fame. Each event seems to echo the previous, and all Llewyn can do is hum along, never providing his own melody.
But this film isn’t bleak. The black-humor of the Coen brothers is one thing. More important to the film is the the irresistible soundtrack that takes the foreground on multiple occasions and provides a redeeming quality to the narrative. There is a quiet beauty to the melancholy music of Llewyn. Maybe it is here that Llewyn ever gets to take a break from the repetition of his life. And much like the film itself, Llewyn’s expression never comes out in forced, heart-wrenching song, but rather in a more genuine, delicate verse.
Grade: A
Rating & Runtime: R, 105 minutes
See if you liked: "O Brother, Where Art Thou"
