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Generally treated with indifference, "Inside Llewyn Davis" is, in my opinion, one of the Coen brothers' best works. Be clear, if you don't like folk music in the Dylan style before the rock turn, forget it, as there are plenty of such songs here, but perhaps you might still enjoy it for everything that surrounds it.
Structured with a circular format (it begins and ends with the same scene, explained in the finale, incomprehensible at the beginning), it is yet another Coen film where the protagonist is an interesting loser. In the New York of 1961, during a harsh winter, folk singer Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) navigates between some recordings where he serves as accompaniment, a few evenings in local venues, and nights spent at friends' homes (the wealthy Gorfeins) or friends who care about him, but only up to a point, including Jean (Carey Mulligan), his ex, who now despises him, even though she tries to help him in the end. Now, the figure of a young, penniless man trying to break into the major music industry inevitably recalls Bob Dylan (the references would be there, the Greenwich Village, Columbia) and at the end, after an evening that finally goes well, the poor Davis starts singing and playing the very same Dylan (the Coens, ruthless, in the only moment when our hero seems to gain a modicum of approval, overshadow him by following him with the much more talented Bob), yet the figure of Davis is inspired by Dave van Ronk, a refined author and arranger, from whose autobiography, "The Mayor of MacDougal Street", the Coens have extensively borrowed.
The atmospheric reconstruction is meticulous to the point of mania, as is the screenplay by the two authors, which mixes and reshuffles the cards continuously. After 40 minutes of following Davis's wanderings, the mysterious travel companion to Chicago appears, interpreted, in a Wellesian style, by John Goodman, as well as the appearance of F. Murray Abraham as Bud Grossman, the owner of the "Great Horn", the most important venue in Chicago. Davis is a ghost wandering unconsciously through the streets of a Kennedy-era America whose "Big Dream" seems lost in the Chicago snow or in the identical houses of New York. Between a failed audition (to Grossman, he strums a kind of ante-litteram folk "Lady Jane", and Grossman's comment is: "I don’t see a lot of money") and a baby on the way that, perhaps, isn't his; between a father in a vegetative state in a nursing home as squalid as it is real, and a series of friends who struggle to understand him, the only living being that seems to care for him is a cat (Ulysses, that’s his name) belonging to the Gorfeins, often (I’d say always) intent on escaping from one window to another.
Among the many oddities, the owner of the "Gaslight Café", the venue where our protagonist plays, is named Pappi Corsicato, in honor of the famous Italian director.
Grand Jury Prize at Cannes.
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Other reviews
By BananaCrusher
The film is a continuous parallel with Homer’s adventures in the Odyssey.
A very enjoyable film that despite its content rich in meaning never exceeds in moralism and heaviness, a must-see!
By stargazer
More than the Homeric references, the film presents a bitter description of the Depression-era South still rife with prejudices and opportunistic politics.
Music becomes the true protagonist, making the film feel at times like a musical, with a soundtrack that won 3 Grammy Awards.
By tiziocaio
It results in a portrait of a splendid and gritty loser, as is traditional for the Coen brothers.
The journey, the guilt, Jewish references that return in their films mixed with their perennial passions.
