Flatter to deceive?

Rating: 3/10 (8 March 2014)

I don't know whether this is a 9 out of 10 star film in which the Coen's stick 2 fingers up to critical awareness or a 3 out of 10 star film in which they stick up the white flag of surrender to critical expectation?
This film is either the Coen Brothers most sarcastic in-joke at the expense of the critics or the film that confirms what some of their detractors have always maintained, that they really can't make genuinely mature and emotional films without resorting to little in jokes and post modernist tropes. As someone who has been an avid follower of the Coen Brothers from "Blood Simple" onwards, who has loved the masterpieces "Fargo", "A Stupid Man" etc, been left indifferent by "Intolerable Cruelty" and "Burn Before Reading" and been appalled by the unwatchable "The Ladykillers" I would like to think that this is some great satirical comedy on the misunderstanding of the artistic process but it could just as easily be a big misjudgment made by people who can only operate at the intellectual level of middle brow critics. Frankly I'm confused by this film.
The lazy critical consensus has presented this film as being essentially about "Losers, likability and luck", the implication being that the character of Llweyn Davis is a misunderstood genius who if only he could connect with people and if only his sense of timing was right could have been Bob Dylan. The reality, at least as I see it in the film, is that he has limited talent, his songs are all fairly derivative and his voice pleasant but anonymous. Music is obviously critical to the film and I think the extract that we hear from Mahler's "Das Lied Von Der Erde", the only non folk music in the film, is key to the Coen's intentions. The extract, I am sure not by coincidence written by a Jewish composer, appears at precisely the point where the lyrics state that "There is no music on Earth that can compare to ours"? Is this the Coen's saying that this is truly beautiful and ethereal music not the music of Llewyn Davis? If it isn't then this is a serious miscalculation because the moment serves to show just how mediocre the folk music in the film is in comparison to the Mahler.
I'd also like to think that the whole cat theme is an enormous joke at the expense of the YouTube piano playing cat generation and that the Coen's are really smart enough to know that people would come up with theories about the cat being the metaphorical presence of Llewyn. I'd also like to think that the sheer predictability of some of the jokes and plot points - who didn't know that second cat was a different cat and a different gender? Who didn't know that the song would be a hit the minute that Llewyn signed away his royalties? Who hadn't made the connection that Llewyn's merchant seaman papers would be in the box he told his sister to place by the curbside? – are also the Coen's playing with audience expectations.
Are the over familiar Coen Brothers characters such as John Goodman's "Roland Turner", an aging and infirm composite of all of his previous Coen Brother's characters, yet another taciturn chain smoking car driver to follow "Gaer Grimsrud" from "Fargo", F Murray Abrahm's "Bud Grossman", yet another sage like deliverer of an anti climactic moment, a comment on the artistic process or a sign that the Coen's really do have to keep repeating themselves?
So far as the casting is concerned Oscar Issac is highly effective in the demanding title role in which he is on screen for virtually every moment. However it is true that he is certainly ideally cast as someone who is not particularly likable as a screen presence whereas you most definitely immediately warm to Justin Timberlake's "Jim". But ultimately is the Coen's real point that under the woolly jumpers these "soulful artists" are so incapable of making genuine gestures that they aren't even capable of throwing themselves off the right bridge when it comes to deciding to commit suicide?
The casting of Carey Mulligan is the real acid test to me of what their real intentions were. So much has been made in articles and features about Ms Mulligans performance, particularly the singing. Yet this amounts to a fairly flat rendition of a single verse of a dull song. Her "Jean" is the girl the men want to "Fuck" but she is presented as a plain girl in a shapeless brown jumper. Her character, as it is written on the face of it, is supposed to be a little atom of misplaced rage, but she is a hypocrite and, as performed, is painfully bloodless and flat. It is not Ms Mulligan's fault that she is so adored by the critical establishment or that she has appeared in overrated and clichéd films such as "Drive" and "Shame" ( where she was supposed to be the self destructive "Yin" to Mr Fassbender's "Yang" but ended up being the whim to his Wang!). It would be unfair to expect someone with her limited life experience and cosseted Hollywood lifestyle to be able to inhabit characters in the way that actresses such as Jean Moreau or Charlotte Rampling, who can bring their own biography to bare in their performances, do. Yet Julianne Moore in films like "Safe" and "Short Cuts", that were relatively early in her career, was able to deliver complex and real people in an absorbing and convincing manner whereas Ms Mulligans is just acting. Ms Mulligan may indeed be delivering what the Coen's wanted but what exactly was that?
The climax of the film for me was the moment when Llewyn's father responded to a "moving" rendition of one of his songs by actually having a bowel movement. Would the Coen's agree? We'll never know.