Another great collaboration between the Coens and T Bone Burnett

Rating: 7/10 (27 May 2014)

Version I saw: UK cinema release (preview screening)
Actors: 7/10
Plot/script: 6/10
Photography/visual style: 7/10
Music/score: 8/10
Overall: 7/10
As befits a film about a misfortune-plagued folk singer in the dark days immediately before Bob Dylan caused a resurgence in its popularity, Inside Llewyn Davis is full of great folk music.
It not only runs through the background, but is woven into the story too. The up-and-coming Oscar Isaac performs several songs, leading me at the time to think he was an actual folk singer the Coens had convinced to act, and supporting stars Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake both raise their own voices, proving surprisingly talented at it.
T Bone Burnett must be given a large part of the credit for the music. He chose and assembled the songs at the behest of the Coen Brothers, having previously performed a similar task on The Ladykillers, and on O Brother Where Art Thou's wonderful Mississippi blues soundtrack.
The film has a different look to any other Coen Brothers film, due to a change in cinematographer: their regular collaborator Roger Deakins was replaced by Bruno Delbonnel, who has a handful of Oscar nominations under his belt, although it pales in comparison to Deakins' eleven!
Once you get past the visual style though (which is actually quite beautiful once you get used to it) and Llewyn's surliness, the Coen's trademark wry, surreal sense of humour is much in evidence. ILD comes from the more sober line of Coen Brothers films than their zany comedies, but there are still plenty of laughs, in my opinion.
And then, although he takes a long time to turn up, frequent Coens alumnus John Goodman's reassuring presence in a quintessentially Coen Brothers role could almost have been directly transplanted from any of the other films in their shared career.
It's not for everyone, but as a die-hard Coens fan, I was not disappointed... and I will probably be buying the soundtrack before too long.
For my full review, see my independent film blog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno: http://cinemainferno-blog.blogspot.co.uk