"If it was never new and never gets old, then it's a folk song"

Rating: 10/10 (7 January 2019)

Rivaling The Man Who Wasn't There for saddest story comes their touching and raw story of Llewyn Davis, a struggling folk musician in New York, 1961 as he plays for little to no money to unethusiastic crowds and rotates sleeping arrangements with his rich condescending friends, to his hateful ex-girlfriend.
Following a familiar trope often seen in Coens films, life just isn't being kind to it's main character. It offers a fine blend of pure bad luck, to stupid decisions he's made himself which begs the overall question, how much of what's happening is his fault? The writing gives you just enough to keep you guessing throughout the film.
It features Oscar Isaac in his breakout performance as the title character, amazing audiences around the world with his singing and playing ability which was all recorded live during principal photography, a long ardous process but it pays off.
We're given a range of unique personalities which you would only find in the lyrics to a folk song, with Carey Mulligan as the angry ex-girlfriend with the voice of an angel, Justin Timberlake, the new innocently cocky boyfriend of Llewyn's ex, John Goodman as a brash jazz musician he meets on the road along with Garrett Hedlund, a beatnik poet who I feel is one of the Coen's most mysterious characters out of all their films.
The film will make you laugh, sigh, shed a tear and leave you feeling desperate for this poor musician, just trying to get by, but the world won't let him.