But it didn't go anywhere, what's the point?!

Rating: 5/10 (7 January 2014)

I loved Oh, Brother Where Art Thou?, so I had high hopes for this flick. I came away very disappointed. It is a slice of life, a week in the life of a struggling folk musician in 1961. My problem is that the main character is pretty much in the same place at the end as at the beginning. Here's the thing: A slice of life, go nowhere movie, with no transformation of the main character, is probably not going to be my cup of tea in almost any case. That said, I do think it can work when it is biographic. Because for a realistic, biographic slice of life, we get to see REAL LIFE, down and dirty, including the reality that sometimes there is no great triumph, no big personal transformation, etc. So, if you give me a window into the true life of an individual, that can be great even without an evolving character, or any triumphant moment.
However, if you give me a phony, contrived fictional piece, and you force me to sit through contrived moments, my "reward" is to get paid off with a clever ending where everything comes together and stuff foreshadowed at the beginning is realized at the end. A fictional story allows the writer to create a slice of life that has a great symmetry and harmonious movement lacking in real life. And it's frankly part of the bargain you make when you start shoving contrivances down the throat of the audience.
So, my problem with this movie is that it simply was not realistic / biographical enough, but instead it was full of contrivances...yet it still went nowhere. Contrivances that serve no purpose to move towards a happy (or tragic) coincidence at the end? Why bother? Take some examples: We see this guy perform, and it's clear he has something special, with his guitar and voice. No way this guy does not have some chicks ready to hook up with him after the way he plays on stage. So why is he begging for a couch to sleep on from near strangers? Given how we see he is fine mooching off people, it is frankly inexplicable that he is not mooching of any of the adoring Greenwich Village groupies he must surely have from his performances. So his desperate near homelessness, despite his great musical skill and having been in the area for some time (i.e., not a newcomer) makes no sense to me.
We also see him visiting his father, and his sister, so apparently his whole family is local to the New York area, which again begs the question how he got to be 30-ish and needing to beg strangers for a couch to sleep on, in his own home town. His sort of living seems more appropriate if (a) he was new to the area, and (b) he was not all that good or polished with his music.
Another contrivance: When he loses the tabby cat, and finds a near identical cat right around the corner. I mean, come on! That color, and size, cat, and quality of grooming, eyes, etc., that's got to be pretty rare for cats wandering the streets of New York, it's definitely not your average alley cat, in coloration or size. So for him to find this identical but wrong cat, so we can have a big confrontational moment, is a blatant contrivance.
It seems like the writers were looking for ways to create contrivances to screw with the main character, to mess up his life intentionally, as if to say, "sucks to be you." Again, what's the point? I mean, if this were truly biographical, it would tell me something about the nature of the universe. But since it is a fiction -- and we know the guy it was loosely based on was nothing like the character in the film except in the most superficial sense -- we are not learning anything except that the writers can think of ways to kick some one when they are down. But I kind of know that already, so I learn nothing of value.
At the end of the movie, we have now seen the main character find out he probably has a two year old son he never saw, but he decided not to go look for him when he passed by that town and had the opportunity. We see he chose to take a flat fee for music, and there is some hint the song will turn out to be a hit and he will later kick himself for not having any royalty rights, but we never see that develop.
I'd also note that to care about the movie, to be moved by it, you have to identify with the main character. But he is just flat out unlikeable. And with the writers throwing contrived tragedies at him, you don't want to link up emotionally with him. So without that, without caring about this jerk who will heckle a poor old woman just because he's having a bad day, how are you supposed to be moved any direction by his failures and lack of success? It just makes no sense, I don't see how audiences get moved by the pap.
On the positive, I think there is some beautiful music, and some beautiful imagery. There is perhaps some poetry to the audio-visual elements, and a nice timing, variation, with some of the dramatic moments, but honestly that's just too little, like a cake that is beautifully decorated with sweet icing but dry and tasteless in the middle.
Well, that's my 2 cents.