The songs are absolutely beautiful and make up one of the year's best soundtracks!

Rating: 9/10 (16 January 2014)

'INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)
The Coen brothers' newest film is yet another of 2013's biggest Oscar contenders, as well as one of the best reviewed movies (of last year) and the Coens' careers! It's about a broke folk singer trying to make a living, by following his dreams, in New York City's Greenwich Village (during a week in 1961). It stars Oscar Isaac as the title character and co-stars Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, Adam Driver, Garrett Hedlund, F. Murray Abraham and John Goodman (who appears in almost every Coen brothers' movie). I found the film to be interesting and entertaining enough (despite an overly depressing nature and lack of story) but most of all I loved the movie's music.
The film takes place during one week in New York City's Greenwich Village, during February of 1961. There's no plot at all but it does have a decent amount of interesting character development. The movie tells the story of Llewyn Davis (Isaac), a struggling musician and ex-merchant marine. He was a part of a mildly popular folk singing duo but his partner committed suicide. He's now trying to make it on his own but his solo album 'Inside Llewyn Davis' isn't selling. He's broke but makes a little bit of money playing clubs while sleeping on friends' couches and waiting for his manager to get his record distributed. He also has to deal with a bitter ex-lover (Mulligan), who thinks she's pregnant with his baby, and take care of a friend's cat (he locked out of it's apartment by accident).
The movie is funny in places (in the Coens' usual style) but mostly it's a pretty serious character driven drama about the struggles of a gifted small-time musician. In that way it reminded me a lot of the 2009 film 'CRAZY HEART'. T-Bone Burnett did a lot of the music for that movie as he does this one (and a couple of other Coen brothers' films as well; 'O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?' and 'THE LADYKILLERS'). The songs in this film were mostly recorded live and played in their entirety. I think they're absolutely beautiful and make up one of the year's best soundtracks (without a doubt). Because of the music I give the movie an especially high rating but the dark negative subject matter and lack of plot certainly don't make the film one of the funnest movies of the year (or the Coens' careers). It does seem very true to life though.
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