Inside Llewyn Davis

Ever since the Coen Brothers started making films, I could always count on a well crafted American film even if others films paled in comparison. These are filmmakers that constantly think outside the box. What most people see as weird, obscure, odd, and even just plain wrong, these guys have been able to use these adjectives to their benefit in how they write and direct. And "Inside Llewyn Davis" is no exception.

Follow a week in the life of a young folk singer, Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961. Guitar in tow, huddled against the unforgiving New York winter, he is struggling to make it as a musician against seemingly insurmountable obstacles--a fair amount of them of his own doing.
Llewyn  meets and interacts with very eclectic people as he roams around the city and travels out of state, such as Roland Turner (John Goodman) and his driver Johnny Five (Garrett Hedlund) that Llewyn hitchhikes with on his way to Chicago. Then there's Pappi Corsicato (Max Casella), owner of the café where folk singers perform, his ex-girlfriend Jean (Carey Mulligan) who doesn't trust Llewyn as far as she can throw him, and her husband, Jim (Justin Timberlake), and Mitch Gorfein (Ethan Phillips) whom Llewyn ever so often uses Mitch's sofa to flop for a day or two. Hey, he even has a cat in tow he lugs around. This is one lost soul.

Others to round out the cast are Robin Bartlett as Lillian Gorfein, Mitch's wife, Jerry Grayson as Mel Novikoff, Llewyn's agent, Jeanine Serralles as Joy, Adam Driver as Al Cody, Stark Sands as Troy Nelson, Alex Karpovsky as Marty Green, Helen Hong as Janet Fung, and Bradley Mott as Joe Flom.

This was written and directed with the usual amount of brilliant creativity we've all come to rely on as we have with every other project Ethan Coen and Joel Coen has put their stamp on. Just look at the resume, and it says it all, ("Raising Arizona" '87, "The Hudsucker Proxy" '94, "Fargo" '96, "The Big Lebowski" '98, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" 2000, "Intolerable Cruelty" '03, "The Ladykillers" '04, "No Country for Old Men" '07, "Burn After Reading" '08, "A Serious Man" '09, "True Grit" '10, "Gambit" '12). These guys have an innate ability to take a common situation and people and create an over-the-top scenario that leaves their audience stunned and amazed that the characters in these films are actually real, because these guys write these characters so surreal that they seem unreal. Not many filmmakers can achieve this and these guys do in spades.

The Coen Brothers are not for everyone, because of their quirkiness, oddball approach in how they convey their character development, one must, at least, respect these guys because they are willing to think outside the box.

Out of 4 Stars: 4                          Rated: R                          104mins.