Inside Llewyn Davis

“If it was nev­er new, and it nev­er gets old, then it’s a folk song.” A warm rip­ple of laugh­ter issues from the sparse crowd, dif­fus­ing the smoke-filled air as Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) caps off anoth­er set at the Gaslight Café́, a smoky fleapit in Green­wich Vil­lage, New York, cir­ca 1961.

This open­ing quip is deliv­ered at the end of a stir­ring ren­di­tion of folk stan­dard ​“Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” which was record­ed by real-life trou­ba­dour Dave Van Ronk – the Brook­lyn-born singer-song­writer whose sto­ry part-inspired Joel and Ethan Coen’s toe-tap­pin’ tri­umph. It’s a line that neat­ly estab­lish­es the self-defeat­ing cyn­i­cism that’s indica­tive of the film’s hir­sute pro­to-hip­ster pro­tag­o­nist, who is imag­ined as an affec­tion­ate car­i­ca­ture of the kind of fame-hun­gry yet con­flict­ing­ly anti-careerist per­form­ers who occu­pied the city’s blos­som­ing folk music scene before Dylan got down in the groove.

It comes as a sur­prise to learn that Llewyn, who cuts a lone­some fig­ure through­out, at one time made up one half of a promis­ing trad-folk duo whose sole LP, ​‘If I Had Wings’, has been steadi­ly col­lect­ing dust in stor­age crates since his partner’s sui­cide. Llewyn has been on a down­ward spi­ral of sor­row and self-loathing ever since, his self-right­eous, couch-surf­ing anti-estab­lish­ment cre­do grad­u­al­ly wear­ing thin on the few remain­ing friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers still will­ing to take him under their wing. Hav­ing jacked in the mer­chant marines to go pro, his debut solo album, from which the film takes its title, isn’t sell­ing well, much to Llewyn’s indig­na­tion. ​“You’ve got to give peo­ple time to get to know you,” his has-been man­ag­er uncon­vinc­ing­ly reas­sures him. On the sur­face of it, though, why would any­one want to get inside Llewyn Davis?

The answer isn’t obvi­ous, at least not right away. Llewyn isn’t an obvi­ous addi­tion to the Coens’ elon­gat­ed line-up of beau­ti­ful losers, scoundrels and rogues, and the writer/​director sib­lings are in no hur­ry to enam­our us with this bel­liger­ent bal­ladeer. His jour­ney is pock­marked with minor set­backs, many of which are self-inflict­ed. As Llewyn picks his frets and sets the world to rights, it feels increas­ing­ly as if every­thing is con­spir­ing against him. Every flaw is mag­ni­fied and no indis­cre­tion goes unpun­ished. Mis­takes unfold in plain view, each new regret-in-wait­ing sign­post­ed in a lan­guage that only Llewyn can’t read.

In one stand­out scene Llewyn lays down a track at Colum­bia Records with fel­low song­smith and close pal Jim (Justin Tim­ber­lake) and a bari­tone cow­boy named Al Cody (Adam Dri­ver), only to wave any per­for­mance roy­al­ties in favour of a quick buck hav­ing arro­gant­ly writ­ten off the song as being too square to be a hit. ​“You’re like King Midas’ idiot broth­er,” scorns Jim’s part­ner (and Llewyn’s one-stop lover) Jean (Carey Mulligan).

Jean’s beef may come with a par­tic­u­lar­ly del­i­cate caveat, but even so, there’s no risk of Llewyn win­ning a pop­u­lar­i­ty con­test amongst his peers. Even a friends’ cat – writ­ten in, accord­ing to the Coens, though sure­ly said with some degree of self-dep­re­cat­ing face­tious­ness, because the screen­play didn’t con­tain a plot – doesn’t hang around for long in Llewyn’s com­pa­ny, opt­ing to brave the bit­ing win­ter cold rather than wait to be returned to its own­ers. Despite being lift­ed by flash­es of satir­i­cal humour and a tranche of typ­i­cal­ly quirky cameos (some of which feel recy­cled, but are no less effec­tive), Inside Llewyn Davis is one of the Coens’ more inward­ly melan­cholic offerings.

This is a film about stick­ing to your guns, even if that means alien­at­ing those who offer sup­port. But while the Coens explore the indomitable nature of the Amer­i­can spir­it, they’re also quick to estab­lish a harsh dis­con­nect between dreams and real­i­ty. Like so many strug­gling musi­cians work­ing the same bas­ket­house club cir­cuit, Llewyn Davis is tread­ing water, his endear­ing self-belief smit­ed by each fresh knock­back. When Llewyn hitch­es a ride to a snow-blan­ket­ed Chica­go in an oppor­tunis­tic attempt to secure a record deal at Bud Grossman’s leg­endary venue, the Gate of Horn, there’s a fleet­ing sense that this could be his big break. As he makes the long trip back to New York, his despon­den­cy pal­pa­ble, the feel­ing of ter­mi­nal malaise that makes the Coens’ six­teenth fea­ture so affect­ing is unavoidable.

It’s upon return­ing home that some­thing clicks. Llewyn may yet con­vince him­self that he is des­tined for great things, gold records and sell-out world tours, but for now, New York is where he belongs. The city fits Llewyn like a glove. Though he itch­es for some­thing more, there is a part of him that is as set­tled as the clock-punch­ing sub­ur­ban­ites he holds in such con­tempt. For now, this time and this place offer his best shot. And so he picks up his gui­tar and strums a famil­iar tune, thank­ful for the loose change but deter­mined to con­tin­ue step­ping to his own beat. It’s a bit­ter­sweet coda that arrives right on cue, just when you start to sus­pect that, like its sailor-mouthed, angel-voiced anti­hero, this spiky tragi­com­e­dy has nowhere left to go.

Tim­ing, of course, is every­thing, and some­thing the Coens have a bet­ter grasp of than most. Their mas­tery of char­ac­ter and set­ting (whether peri­od or present day) are noth­ing new, their abil­i­ty to pop­u­late and colour instant­ly recog­nis­able locales – be it post-war South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Dust Bowl Mis­sis­sip­pi or Space Race-era NYC – while avoid­ing the more obvi­ous land­marks and cul­tur­al ref­er­ence points is con­sis­tent­ly grat­i­fy­ing. Irre­spec­tive of the where and the when, there’s a sooth­ing famil­iar­i­ty about the worlds they cre­ate that’s as unwa­ver­ing as their dry obser­va­tion­al wit. Like slip­ping on an old pair of jeans, every­thing fits just the way it should.

In Inside Llewyn Davis this effort­less­ly applied real­ism is rein­forced by long-time Coens col­lab­o­ra­tor ​“T‑Bone” Bur­nett, Bob Dylan’s old tour­ing gui­tarist who pro­duced the sound­tracks for O Broth­er, Where Art Thou? and The Ladykillers, here work­ing along­side Mar­cus Mum­ford, who earns him­self some seri­ous cred for his lyri­cal and vocal work. Per­formed live by Oscar Isaac in spine-tin­gling close-up, the songs select­ed for the film are gutsi­ly played out in full, and frankly it’s no won­der when they’re so infec­tious­ly, soul-nour­ish­ing­ly good. If the songs linger longest in the mind, how­ev­er, it’s only because the Coens have built such a robust play­er on which these glo­ri­ous plat­ters can spin. They say that the best songs are the most sim­ple ones. Well, as far as the Coen broth­ers are con­cerned, no one makes sim­ple look so easy.