Why do I keep falling for the Coen Brothers label?

Rating: 4/10 (30 December 2013)

I swore off their movies with "No Country For Old Men," saying that they used the same formula over and over since "Barton Fink." Yet, I once again thought, "This one looks different."
Okay, it's different. No blood or crime sprees. No action of any sort. It's a long character study of a character that isn't very likable, and it doesn't seem that the directors want to present him as likable or redeemable or having any qualities whatsoever.
The cameo characters are interesting, but they drift in and out of the movie without much impact at all. What does Llewyn learn from them? Why are they in his life? Reach for your popcorn and you'll miss their appearance at all, leaving nothing.
It's a snapshot, much like a complex painting, one that makes you want to know what is driving the characters or how they came to interact, but you aren't given the opportunity to. It's a sorbet, giving just enough information to create a curiosity, but insufficient exploration to learn from knowing them.
If you love the Coen Brothers and think they're geniuses who can do no wrong - and evidently much of the art-house crowd is precisely that sort of person - please do go find out what is inside Llewyn Davis. If you want to skip it, look on the back of the movie poster and you'll see the sum total of what is revealed in the actual movie.
I too have a peculiar, slavish devotion to art-house cinema. I'm a sucker for off the beaten path, French language, noncommercial, etc. I've seen possibly all Coen Bros films since Barton Fink and they have many moments of brilliance. Perhaps they're now in their Fat Elvis days, riding on their former creativity, or more like their fat Marlon Brando days, clearly once artists but now just confusing author/directors who throw up a performance and expect paying audiences to go see it. Audiences like me. Don't be one of them.