No buzz - good intro to Mr Van Ronk though

Rating: 4/10 (1 February 2014)

Sadly lacking in buzz this movie. Might it be possible that Greenwich Village in 1961 was an exciting place to be? No sense of that here. Instead a series of cliché characters; light and misplaced spoofing of "folk" types - oh what a laugh! with their arran jumpers singing their "dated" shanties - This is film-making by numbers and less than I would expect of the Coen Brothers. We've got that cigarette trick. It's 1961 - everybody smokes. Look at them in the Gaslight Cafe. They are all smoking. How quaint! - and heavy-handed. Redeeming features - Sylvia Gauder. Carey Mulligan is good too. Effective plot loop. A mild sense of thwarted artistic endeavour. In general though it's too knowing and measured.
Final positive - good to have the introduction to the music of Mr Van Ronk. His rendering of House of the Rising Sun sublime - on Spotify (from Washington Square).