It’s always cause for celebration when the Coen Brothers release a new movie. Whether that anticipation or celebration was warranted once the movie is out is almost always in the eye of the beholder. The Coens can veer from cult classic to box office hit from film to film – from Blood Simple to Raising Arizona, Barton Fink to Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou to No Country for Old Men – the list is impressive, even with their “failures” like The Man Who Wasn’t There and The Hudsucker Proxy (which I think are both criminally under-rated).

Their latest film, Inside Llewyn Davis, was met with a lot of anticipation but severely divided the Coen devoted. I’ve seen high praise and downright disdain for the film, and with the Academy of Motin Picture Arts and Sciences passing the film over in all of the major categories (save for cinematography and sound mixing), I knew it was time to take a look at the film now that it’s available on home video.

Inside Llewyn Davis takes place in New York’s Greenwich Village area, circa 1961, a kind of hazy era for the folk music scene just before Dylan. Davis (Oscar Isaac) is one half of a defunct duo – his partner committed suicide – who is trying to make it in the industry as a solo act, playing underground clubs and dealing with a shady agent who doesn’t seem to have Llewyn’s career as a top priority. Llewyn spends his nights couch-hopping and his days alienating everyone around him with his lack of passion for what he’s trying to do. Or is he just misunderstood? It’s really hard to tell.

Isaac plays Davis as a sleepy-eyed drifter, going from one friend’s place to the next for the night, never seeming to take responsibility for his existence. The only time he tries to be responsible is only after he’s been irresponsible by getting someone pregnant. He basically has an account with the doctor who performs abortions. His latest mistake is with the wife (Carey Mulligan) of his friend Jim (Justin Timberlake), and she has no clue if the baby is Jim’s or Llewyn’s so she has no choice but to get rid of it, even though she desperately wants children.

Like Llewyn, Mulligan’s character Jean, is just a morose person but topped off with a huge amount of misplaced anger. Every time she confronts Llewyn about the baby, it’s always HIS fault that she’s in this situation. She never once takes responsibility for her own actions (and Llewyn apparently isn’t the only other guy she’s slept with as we learn later in the movie). Even when she goes out of her way to help Llewyn get a gig because she actually believes in him more than he does in himself, she’s just been so unpleasant up to that point that it’s hard to swallow that she would even do that for him.

Llewyn leaves New York and the movie then becomes a road trip where he encounters a jazz musician he hitches a ride with on the way to Chicago (and it’s never clear if he set up the ride or just happened to hop in this guy’s car) which becomes a rather pointless exercise for John Goodman to try to inject some laughs into this supposed comedy film. He does have a few good lines, but then he’s gone and you’re left wondering what that was all about.

In fact, that’s the feeling you’re left with by the end of the film, which confusingly seems to loop back on itself, but then you realize the entire thing was a flashback and we’re still left wondering just how deeply we really did get into Llewyn Davis’ psyche by the time the credits roll. As a fan of the Coen Brothers, I just found Inside Llewyn Davis to be a film that holds the viewer at arms length, never really letting you get to know any of the characters because they’re all so depressed or angry. Timberlake’s Jim seems to be fairly happy and well-adjusted (because he doesn’t know his wife is a slut), but he’s barely in the movie long enough to bring that joy he has to lighten things up.

On the plus side, the film does show why it got the two Oscar nominations it did. The cinematography is a gorgeously muted grey/green, giving us a time and place where the sun never seems to shine … which could explain why everyone is so depressed all the time. The new Blu-ray accurately represents the intent of cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, who wanted scenes to fall back into darkness. The colors are subdued and the blacks are very deep in those shadowy scenes, so while it may not be reference quality, it still looks lovely (and it’s interesting to compare the colorful, raw footage seen in the featurette with the color-graded footage of the film). The 5.1 DTS-HD Master audio also puts the musical performances – recorded live on set – front and center but doesn’t get too much of a workout, save for some background ambient sound, during the rest of the film. The star is the music, and the track represents it very well indeed.

The Blu-ray’s only bonus is a 42-minute featurette, Inside Inside Llewyn Davis, that takes us behind the scenes looking more at the pre-production period of the film’s music more than anything else. We get a little insight into the characters, but the music and the era the Coen’s wanted to portray are the stars here. It’s a surprisingly “bare bones” disk, but the lack of significant extras gives the film more room to breathe in the video and audio presentation.

Inside Llewyn Davis is a hard film to enjoy. Isaac does give a terrific performance in the end even if you hate the character, and his vocals are probably the best part of the movie. In fact, even if you’re not into the folk music scene, the music (overseen by regular Coen collaborator T. Bone Burnett and Marcus Mumford) is captivating and really ends up being the film’s main selling point. Without that, it would be one long slog through the lives of some really unlikable people.

Inside Llewyn Davis on Blu-ray was provided by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment for the purpose of this review.

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Change is said to be quite inevitable and affects basically everything. Even the talented and beautiful must suffer the vagaries of fate and the changing whims of public taste. A master actor of the silent movie era may become obsolete once sound arrives. The greatest hair metal band in the world seemed irrelevant when Nirvana arrived. But the choice of any artist in times of change are either to adapt or struggle in place. But artists have an even greater enemy than the new fad or different popular notions: themselves and their own bloated sense of self-worth. The problem with talent is that if you have it but aren’t successful at applying it, your life seems somehow wasteful. And if you strive for success but fall short time and again, things may seem increasingly pointless. Finding refuge in sex and drugs is commonplace, if not so helpful. And yet, at the same time, it is easy for artists to abandon those who may care about them in pursuit of that barely definable goal of “making it.” Some people never even get that far. And some people just decide to “sell out,” which can mean quite a few things.

Inside Llewyn Davis is the latest movie from the Coen Brothers, covering a week in the life of a struggling folk artist (Llewyn of the film’s title) in 1961. Llewyn, played by Oscar Isaac, has little money and a helluva lot of pride, but owes money everywhere and has no home of his own. Instead, he must find places to sleep, from friends or his sister, a single mother, all of with whom he has complicated histories. And things are only getting more complicated. His best friend Jim (Justin Timberlake) is looking for some help on a new, overly treacly song about the space race, and Jim’s wife and singing partner Jean (Carey Mulligan) has some serious issues with Llewyn. After a series of misadventures and setbacks, he decides to accept a ride to Chicago (along with an overweight jazz musician played by John Goodman) because Llewyn might just have a chance at a contract if he can play for music producer Bud Grossman (the epic F. Murray Abraham). But as this is a Coen Brothers movie, anything is possible, and the ending may be expected or wholly the opposite. And because it’s only a week, there’s a great deal of room for interpretation.

This film is a mix of a drama and a musical of sorts, filled with several full length performances of excellently written folk songs. Oscar Isaac has excellent stage presence and a lovely singing voice, but at times the performances can seem a bit repetitive and lack connection to the plot. There are some specific songs that ache with emotional resonance, but getting there might be too much effort for some. As might be expected from this sort of movie, it’s a bit intentionally fragmented and meandering, with a kind of dark humor and casual elegance. There are all sorts of little great performances here, which I won’t spoil, although the weakest is probably Justin Timberlake, but thankfully he’s mostly relegated to singing (which he’s quite good at). But Carey Mulligan is an emotional powerhouse, the furious little fire to Oscar Isaac’s laconic melancholia, and John Goodman is obviously great as a variant of himself. But F. Murray Abraham was my favorite performance of the movie, seemingly effortlessly making a magnificently subtle and affecting show of acting, although he’s pretty great in most things (he’s been one of the best parts of Homeland lately). This isn’t a movie for lightness and simple situations, but complications and escalating problems. For those who can’t handle something that might depress you, I’d avoid this one.

As for me, I enjoyed the film, difficult to empathize with characters and all. The movie doesn’t really end up saying anything definitively about art, but suggests (to me anyway) that if you have passion and talent, try not to be a total jerk to people. That’s a pretty okay lesson, if you think about it.

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PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING POST VERY CAREFULLY AND FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS PROVIDED.

CliqueClack has partnered with CBS Films and Allied Integrated Marketing to offer readers in the Baltimore and DC areas free passes to an advance screening of the critically acclaimed new film from the Coen Brothers, Inside Llewyn Davis starring Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund and Justin Timberlake. Inside Llewyn Davis follows a week in the life of a young folk singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961. Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is at a crossroads. Guitar in tow, huddled against the unforgiving New York winter, he is struggling to make it as a musician against seemingly insurmountable obstacles — some of them of his own making. Living at the mercy of both friends and strangers, scaring up what work he can find, Llewyn’s misadventures take him from the baskethouses of the Village to an empty Chicago club — on an odyssey to audition for a music mogul — and back again.

Brimming with music performed by Isaac, Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan (as Llewyn’s married Village friends), as well as Marcus Mumford and Punch Brothers, Inside Llewyn Davis — in the tradition of O Brother, Where Art Thou? — is infused with the transportive sound of another time and place. An epic on an intimate scale, it represents the Coen Brothers’ fourth collaboration with multiple-Grammy and Academy Award®-winning music producer T Bone Burnett. Marcus Mumford is associate music producer.

Screenings will take place on Monday, December 16, 7:00 PM at the following locations:

• Landmark Bethesda, 7235 Woodmont Ave, Bethesda, MD
• AMC White Marsh, 8141 Honeygo Blvd, Baltimore, MD

To claim your free passes, simply click on the follow links for the appropriate location: BETHESDA or BALTIMORE

You will be redirected to GoFoBo.com where you will be able to download up to two Admit One passes. There are a limited number passes available and the offer will end as soon as all the passes have been claimed. CliqueClack has no control over the number of passes available and is not responsible for the distribution of the passes for this event.

Do not comment on this post requesting passes!

Have a look at the film’s trailer and use one of the links above to claim your passes. Inside Llewyn Davis opens in DC and Baltimore on December 20.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JvHEDJEguY