A Gorgeous Elegy from the Coen Brothers

Rating: 10/10 (22 January 2014)

For every Bob Dylan out there, there are hundreds, probably thousands, of musicians who don't make it. Many of them are even very talented, but they're lacking whatever it is they need to break out and become a star.
Meet Llewyn Davis, one of the thousands. Navigating the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s, Davis is a good singer of good songs, but he's stuck on an endless treadmill of existence of his own making. We don't feel sorry for him, because he's a jerk. But we, or at least I, feel compassion for him, because every time he opens his mouth to sing, he expresses the vulnerability and warm humanity that he's not able to express in any other way.
The Coen brothers have created a vibrant, unsettling, marvelous movie with "Inside Llewyn Davis," a dark night of the soul journey led by the actor Oscar Isaac, who plays the title character flawlessly. In this overcrowded movie awards season, it's criminal that this film got lost in the shuffle and that virtually no one seems to think it's worthy of serious awards attention. But then again, when I see the films that do win awards, it makes me think that maybe "Inside Llewyn Davis" is in better company with things as they are.
Grade: A+