Following on with their long tradition of idiosyncratic protagonists, Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest outing Inside Llewyn Davis centres around a struggling singer-songwriter trying to negotiate a route out of the New York underground folk scene.
Taking place across a single week in 1961 around Greenwich village’s burgeoning folk scene and harsh winter, Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is at a crossroads. Left to pursue his solo career after the suicide of his partner Mike, Davis’ album is not selling. He’s broke and forced to sleep on the couches of friends.
Following a gig as a session musician in which he takes an immediate payment rather than royalties, the seemingly prodigious talent Davis takes a trip to Chicago to meet a music mogul for an audition that could possibly revive his fortunes.
Although Davis is a fictional character, the Coen brothers based him on American folk singer David Van Ronk - as well as using his posthumous 2005 memoir The Mayor of MacDougal Street as a source. It should be noted that by all accounts Van Ronk was a very well liked figure completely at odds with Davis - who - to be frank, is a complete jackass.
Crucial to the film’s success is its supporting cast: Carey Mulligan plays Davis’s dowdy ex-girlfriend Jean while Justin Timberlake (yes J.T), puts in a mature performance as her slightly wet husband Jim. Both Jean and Jim sport some rather nerdy attire throughout. Troy Nelson (Stark Sands) is particularly believable as the fellow-musician and square soldier who stays with Jean and Jim. John Goodman puts in a brief appearance as the decrepit ex Jazz musician and heroin addict Roland Turner whose quips provide some light relief in an otherwise emotionally draining film.
Shifting from scene to scene - often without saying a great deal, the main story arc is provided by a ginger cat who has escaped Davis' elderly friends the Gorfeins. Pages of pretentious guff could probably be written about the cat's role however, as Joel Coen said: "The film doesn't really have a plot. That concerned us at one point; that's why we threw the cat in."
Consequently Inside Llewyn Davis turns out to be one of the Coen brothers most cryptic films, seemingly an ouroboros, without beginning nor end and in a subtle - perhaps even unexpected way, one of their most complex.
Inside Llewyn Davis is released in UK cinemas on January 24, 2014
