Geekscape Second Opinion: ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’
The much anticipated Coen Brothers’ film Inside Llewyn Davis, a film about the titular character’s struggles in the 1960s folk scene, has been living up to expectations. After the success of No Country for Old Men and True Grit, moviegoers and fans of the pair’s films are quite excited. According to IMDB, the film was loosely based on the life of folk singer Dave Van Ronk’s 2005 memoirs.
The film itself focuses on Llewyn Davis, played by Oscar Isaac (Sucker Punch, Drive) in what is arguably his biggest role to date. He was excellent as Davis, a struggling musician in the Greenwich Village area of New York. As much as I don’t like or enjoy folk music, he was not only talented but entertaining when singing. Off stage, his character was negative, rough around the edges and seemed to have a strong tendency to make terrible decisions over and over again.
One of the high points of the film was the adorable Carey Mulligan (The Great Gatsby, Drive) who played the wife of his friend. Mulligan usually plays kind, likeable characters, but in this film be prepared to see a different side. She is nasty and has a seething hatred for Davis, which really exhibited Mulligan’s range as an actor.
The humor of the film was typical Coen Brothers. The audience broke out in laughter often throughout the film, and as usual, it was fairly mixed in with serious situations. Another fun aspect of the movie is definitely the song Justin Timberlake’s (In Time, Bad Teacher) character wrote, Please Mr. Kennedy, a song purposely written badly for laughs that turns out to be pretty darn likeable.
The one negative was the plot line, which was reminiscent of No Country for Old Men. It was almost so artsy it hurt, playing up to pretentious filmgoers who will likely discuss the deep meaning of the film when in all likelihood they probably didn’t fully understand the loose plot and confusing timeline.
Overall, I’d give the film 3/5 stars.
Inside Llewyn Davis opens in some theaters December 20th and is expected to expand to more in January.
Be sure to also check out MCDave’s review of the film here!
Extended Trailer:
