Festa Mobile screening - review - INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
The Coen brothers shift slightly out of their comfort zone with a more character driven story that has an urban grittier film. Inside Llewyn Davis follows the predicaments of a struggling folk singer in new York City in the early sixties as he struggles to get the recognition and fame he feels he deserves as a musician. All the while, he certainly suffers for his art, constantly penniless – so much so that he is unable to even afford himself a winter coat – and encountering nothing but closed doors.
Oscar Isaac in the leading role is absolutely amazing and delivers the kind of magnetic performance that was required. In fact, his face alone is able to reveal an endless array of emotions from anger to frustration, concern and disenchantment to sadness and kind-heartedness. He’s a lot like a beaten dog, who despite the hardships takes his fair share of beatings and still relentlessly gets up for more. This is what also leads him on a desperate and in many ways hopeless trip to Chicago to meet a big producer and show him a latest work of his. On top of that, he is able to evoke great feeling through his singing as well as his acting. Strong support is provided by the likes of Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake and John Goodman.
On a narrative level, the film is engaging from start to finish. Though one would expect a certain frustrated and angry tone to dictate the tone of the film, Inside Llewyn Davis is soft-spoken and has a type of unexpected warmth that makes it endlessly charming. What is absolutely remarkable, in fact, is the way in which Joel and Ethan Coen are at their ease at not only telling the story in an engaging way, as they have after all done in the past. It is the way in which they remain totally respectful and faithful to not only Llewyn’s dreams and visions but also to the cultural atmosphere of the times and the type of music that is the true driving force of their latest work. And at this point, it is only right to mention that the soundtrack is memorable and it’s easy to see that some of its numbers in particular will spin off and take on a life of their own beyond the film.
The photography is also arguably much grainier that in any other film by the Coens. This evokes the style of the cinema of the time, the American New Wave, where a lot of the films were also character driven, and adds to the faithful atmosphere of the time and conveys the prestige of the work that is certainly among the most solid that the great American filmmakers have ever made.