The folk scene without the folk or the scene

Rating: 5/10 (28 December 2013)

It's amazing how dazzled one can be by so very little these days. There's very little here--a struggling unpleasant man who sings his heart out about standard "folk" catastrophes but can't take care of himself as he goes about damaging others, and animals as well. He's your 50's college roommate who cooks on a hot plate and sings about historic heroic starvations. The in- and-out mythic references are unfocused and a game for undergraduates. When the Coens go flat it's not even E flat. We're forced to watch this guy's face for an hour or so without a clue to his demons; he's just a jerk, a driven jerk but a jerk nonetheless.
Best part is the recreation of the early 60's in cars, atmospheres, but then John Goodman shows up from "Where art thou?" and spoils the realistic angst. Sorry, but the early folk scene wasn't this creepy and Bob Dylan didn't rescue it from oblivion or creepiness. Without a political or sexual agenda (it got you chicks) it did flounder, but it needed an audience for shifting values and social awareness. One's suffering couldn't just be for one's art, but had to have a social dimension that this guy can't see. A genius before his time? Hardly--a guy who can't take care of himself, or his friends or family or lovers--anything but "folk." The times they were a changin', but this guy's a talented pathetic scrounge and lacks the connections to others and society that might propel him to sing for the changing times.
This might be the ethos of the Coens and their films themselves--within society but not of it. Their characters struggle with their messy quirky lives but we see them as curiosities rather than representatives of anything important. There's a certain clown show aspect to their films, which creates their charm and fun but little else.