At their very best (Fargo and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?), the Coen brothers are hard to beat. Unfortunately, Inside Llewyn Davis misses the mark, providing a few memorable scenes but ultimately collapsing under its own weight.
The scruffy title character (Oscar Isaac) has two primary talents: folk singing and self-sabotage. In order to build a story around someone this consistently unlikeable, the Coen brothers have only two choices:
1) They can (and frequently do) surround Llewyn with secondary characters so meek and forgiving that they come across as mentally disabled.
2) They can (and frequently do) build ironically comic scenes around Llewyn’s chance encounters with oddball strangers.
This film alternates between scenarios one and two for about ninety minutes. By the end, given Llewyn’s complete lack of in interest in redemption, we’ve had quite enough of him.
Only one character — used all too sparingly — responds to Llewyn with the disgust he deserves: Jean (Carey Mulligan), who may or may not be pregnant with Llewyn’s child and may or may not want to abort it. The scenes where these two interact are the brightest moments in the movie, but they are too few, and too far between.
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