Inside Llewyn Davis

Inside Llewyn Davis written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, starring Oscar Isaac, Casey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, and John Goodman.

I don't necessarily like all of the Coen brothers movies but I respect them and their ability to do movies the way they want to do movies as they stick their middle finger up at Hollywood each and every chance they get.  Their movies are always interesting even though not always good, at least I don't like all their movie but they do make more movies I like than movies I don't like.   

This movie is one of their ones I like.  It was very interesting and had me watching it without worrying about time as it flowed by at a quick pace.  It's basically about 72 hours in the life of the title character Llewyn Davis as he tries to get his life organized, trying to find reason in a life that he doesn't want to admit might have been wasted.  He's not a real likeable character but is interesting as the juggles his struggles, his loneliness, his homeless, his scruples, his artistic freedom, his family, his girl friend, his "friends", and his music trying to find some place in the world he's journeying through.  Music is his outlet, his way to communicate everything that he's going through.  He pours his passion into his music.  The Coen brothers really let his music not just be music, but it's an extension of everything about him and it grows in wild organic ways as he refuses to compromise who he is artistically - on a metaphorical level I think this is how the Coen brothers feel about their career within Hollywood.  It almost plays like a sort of biographical movie.

All the Coen brothers normal treatments are here and work within the movie's world without bagging it down or being distracting.  There's weird characters, some great dialogue, some great cinematography, everything expected of the Coen brothers.  Then the one thing great about them is that they let the actors actually act without destroying scenes with over editing or hyper cutting.  Something a lot of directors have no clue about today.

I still don't know what to make of the ending as it had a sort of meta ending but not in a pretentious, snobby sort of way but in a way that made me want to watch the movie again and piece everything together because I didn't quite see that ending coming.  It's not a surprise or shocking ending but it definitely is an ending I didn't see coming and one that gets the mind a thinking.