Not Quite A Classic

Rating: 6/10 (15 March 2015)

The posters for 'Inside Llewyn Davis's hype it as Classic Cohen Brothers, and it is most certainly that...sort of.
Replete with an oddball, outsider protagonist, a host of endearingly iconoclastic supporting characters, great use of landscape and occasionally blisteringly hot one-liners. A period piece, set amid the early '60s folk circuit, it riffs on Ulysses (sometimes a little heavy-handedly) anduma certain Bill Murray film (though to name it would if not actually spoil a surprise, make you arch a quizzical eyebrow a little less archly). Oscar Isaac in the central role of an aspiring folklore is by far the Cohen's least sympathetic leading character in quite some time, and it is greatly to his credit that despite this disadvantage he's almost endearing in his single minded capacity to learn nothing from his mistakes. The music is always entertaining (superb soundtracks being yet another perennial quality of Joel and Ethan's flicks. John Goodman, F. Murray Abraham, Justin Timberlake (again demonstrating his skills as an excellent character actor) and the lovely Carey Mulligan (brunette, here, and thus making me even happier than usual) are all as good as you would expect in file-sharing this Homer homage.