Good movie but grossly overrated

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Great story about an artist who has lost his passion in the thing he loves and is still struggling to accomplish what he's had been trying to do with his partner; become a successful folk musician. What we see is the antithesis of what you'd expect from the Greenwich folk crowd which is a community of people who love this music and support each other because of it. What we see is a man's dead dreams and his struggle to even remember anything that was good about them. Brilliant music performances.

After watching the Coen Brother's latest film, Inside Llewyn Davis, I was forced to be left with one question: so what? Yes, Inside Llewyn Davis is shot magnificently, with long shots and brilliant camera angles that capture the essence of Greenwich Village in the 60's. Yes, the film has beautiful cinematography and yes, the acting is magnificent, especially by the talented Oscar Isaac. But the question 'so what?' still lingers, after watching this film. We were forced to watch a week in the life of a struggling musician who bounces from couch to couch, trying to make ends meet. At times, I even rooted for him and wanted him to get paid because he's a talented musician who's not selling out. Other times, I hated the guy with a passion. Indeed, Llweyn is a jerk but true to his work and music. The movie ends the same way it starts: will not include any spoilers here. Perhaps the Cohen Brothers are trying to show that his Llweyn will never amount to anything; perhaps, satirizing the music business: if you don't sell out, you won't succeed. So, perhaps, he will be stuck in the same predicament even after the credits roll. It is not his music that stands out, however, but his unimportant exploits that take place in various circumstances during the movie. All the characters had their fair share of Llweyn and they demonstrate their feelings throughout the movie, making us aware of his personality; a ruined relationship with Jean (Carey Mulligan), a unfortunate incident causing him to lose his friend and singing partner, and a unsympathetic manager that no longer believes in him. All those things paint the picture way ahead of everything else. It's all regarding Llweyn, and half way through the film, we've found out all we need about his persona. Although the film is shot magnificently, it accomplishes nothing, mainly due to the script's failure to become climactic. The most fascinating part of the film is the road trip that introduces us to a few characters played by John Goodman, F. Murray Abraham, and Garrett Hedlund as Johnny Five. The road trip is long as we feel its length through the various shots that depict the icy cold roads of the Midwest and Llweyn's adventures. He witnesses a near death, almost gets arrested, and hits a cat with a car. overall, the film is about a man's life and how he shapes the lives of the people he impacts. His music, although wonderful, play second fiddle to his character. Inside Llweyn Davis is a visual masterpiece but the story needs more.

Much like most other movies by the Coen's, this seemed very different to everything else they have done. Before seeing it, I expected it to be a sincere attempt at portraying a Dylan-like figure, with a heavy focus on the music itself, and also with a whole lot of nostalgia. This is kind of true, but these are not the aspects of the film that'll stay with you (even though the music was really good!).There's not really much of a plot in this movie, but it's so well crafted that you hardly notice. Llewyn has a goal, but it's obvious from the start that this movie is not about reaching that goal, but rather about his every day struggle, and the life as a folk musician in an almost mythical period of music history. Llewyin is an interesting character, flawed but easy to like. His struggle feels real, and plays into an overarching theme of how your fate can be out of your hands, but also how perseverance can lead to something good.The movie is similar to road movies in that it features a lot of different characters that Llewyn meets and interacts with. Some of these are very much Coen-esque, and I'm always amazed by how Coen manages to establish such layered side characters, despite them only appearing on screen briefly. Bot casting and writing must be stellar to be able to do this, and they seem to do it all the time.It ends in a way that makes the movie more than just a mood piece, and opens up for some interesting discussions. Once again, they've managed to make a brilliant film.

** SPOILERS **Inside Llewyn Davis personally swept me away the first time I saw it and my head was swimming with the events throughout the story and the interpretations of them as I understood it. Please keep in mind as you read this that I'm speaking of art and interpretations are all they could possibly be, not anything concrete. But I have gathered that some people don't take much from the movie while I found at least the overall theme of an endless cycle to be pretty much blatant. Anywho this review is mostly for those viewers. So the most salient theme like I said is that of the endless cycle we follow Llewyn through. The relentless, crushing cycle of Llewyns life and the painful monotony of it all is only magnified by the casual way the viewer glimpses into it, as if it's inconsequential when the story starts or ends. I felt that in the last leg of the movie it was very obvious that this was simply another week in the life of Llewyn Davis. The constant familiar occurrences of a person making the same decisions in the same place, something not exclusive to a struggling musician but relevant all the same. It can be argued that none of these events are actually very significant, but simply tell Llewyns revolving story. The end is a kind of repeat of the beginning, but I feel convinced that some things may have not been there before when Llewyn experienced it. First I found that the poster Llewyn notices before his last gig seems very important. It's a movie poster that says "The Fantastic Journey" or something of the sort, a stimulus that to me suggests that Llewyns repetitive misadventures are not the end-all, but instead a means to an end. In other words the idea as I'm explaining it is that perhaps his story was not meaningless and it was a journey taking him to whatever's next. He plays his last gig and is socked by the same or similar goon as he was in the beginning, while Bob Dylan performs at the Gaslight, probably for the first time. If the goon represented the folk scene, or Llewyns environment in general (both of which were constantly "kicking him down" or whatever), then Llewyn literally says goodbye to that life at the end as the goon is driven away. This is placed perfectly with Bob Dylans performance because the monumental success of Dylans career was sure to be the final nail in Llewyns coffin. I also like to think that maybe there were signs earlier in the movie that Llewyn was staging his gradual exit. For instance, he got his shipping papers in order but there was a setback. So of course here he is playing The Gaslight again, and the cycle continues. Only now he is one big step closer to moving on and possibly, finally, being released from the cycle. So it can even be interpreted that any other week in this story is similar, but maybe peppered with these small steps. Another example of this is how he didn't let the cat out of the apartment the second time he left. Another small step. (The cat is a whole different review worth of speculation btw). Exceptional film. Perfectly executed I thought, and with a real artistic integrity. I think some people are bored by the music scenes, and I'm a musician so I really can't comment on that too objectively, but at the risk of sounding smug I can't help but say that if you didn't have the patience for the music scenes in this movie, or Treme, or things of the sort, then you really might not love music as much as you probably say you do.