the Chilly Blue palette of the folk of NYC

Rating: 10/10 (11 November 2014)

Once you get used to the washed-out, chilly-blue color scheme, it's another sad-funny tale from the Coens, mostly sad for how much life, bad luck and sometimes his own choices kicks the (albeit sometimes d*ckkish) downtrodden folk singer Llewyn Davis in the teeth. He's a captivating protagonist, possibly for all the wrong reasons (in another hands): he's not a 'cool' person to be around most of the time, he's prickly, he doesn't get along very well with the women in his life (well, certainly one, played by Carey Mulligan, her very best work yet, like revelatory), and yet he's very talented and has some soul.
But it's a soulful film, about a subject that doesn't get touched on enough which is the creative person who just can't seem to breakthrough. What happens to those who have the good stuff but can't get to that one next step, or connect with a wide audience like some of Davis' other contemporaries do? What happens when the Man With The Keys that can get you into the business says, "I don't see a lot of money here?" As a creative person/artist myself, this movie had the air of a documentary in that sense. Well... Bob Dylan can rip you off, apparently.
Oscar Issac gets his breakthrough here, I must add. He makes this guy compulsively watchable and even if we don't always like him he is a real person, he's someone with a lot of warts and Isaac doesn't shy away from showing that (via the Coens' blisteringly comic/dramatic script). And for all the moments that spark out as being piercingly funny - any of John Goodman's scenes, talk about stylized, over-the-top dialog being performed with just the hint of humanity and devilishness - it's more drama than comedy. There's a scene where Davis goes to see his father, who isn't doing too well. How this unfolds, how the shots go between father and son as he plays him a song, you almost want to cry watching it. If it's not one of, you know, the Coen's top 5 best or whatever that means, it's an impressive, quality film that will last and be a kind of genuine document of that period in 1960/1961 when folks was a thing that could matter.
And the morale of the story is.... take good care of your cat.