The Coen Brothers' worldview is portable through time and space. Whether they are presenting the American heartland circa 1980, Minnesota in 1967 or New York City in the early 1960s, life is harsh, pointless and absurd, though sometimes it's also funny, at least funny to watch. Their latest, "Inside Llewyn Davis[1] ," is set in the Greenwich Village folk scene over the course of a few days in 1961, but it might just as well take place at a Model T plant in 1925 or at a 17th century tulip farm in Holland, because the message would be the same: It's horrible out there.
So we have a movie that's enjoyable and yet puzzling and hard to embrace fully. "Inside Llewyn Davis" goes back to a very specific cultural moment but shows no real interest in the way people really thought, talked or acted then. It visually recreates the folk era but has nothing to say about it in particular. The Coens, with this film, are like people who fly all the way to Paris on vacation and then eat at McDonalds every night, because that's what they know. Why bother making the trip at all?
The film begins in a dark, smoky nightclub, with Llewyn (Oscar Isaac[2] ) entertaining a crowd with just his voice and guitar. This is a talented man, an artist, someone who deserves good things from life. But what he soon gets is a punch in the face, and from there the movie becomes a series of bad breaks, stresses and indignities. As played by Isaac, Llewyn is used to this life and yet is completely shocked and exasperated by every bad turn. His ridiculously astonished reaction to his fate is what makes this a comedy and not a tragedy.
For sure, this is a funny movie. The humor is of the darkest possible variety, but it's there, and once you get onto the wavelength and start enjoying every awful thing that happens, the laughs become frequent. Laughter is its own justification. It makes "Inside Llewyn Davis" a better than middling movie. And yet the laughter can only cover over, or make us obliged to ignore, what is a highly inharmonious match - the cool, smirky pessimism of the Coens versus the guileless hope of the pre-Dylan folk scene.
How could the Coens approach such a mind-set? They could never embrace guileless hope and they have no interest in recreating the era's mood. Yet they don't quite want to mock the folk scene, either, because, in their own stone-faced way, they love it. That's why some scenes land in a neither/nor category, a weird zone of not-quite satire.
It's also why some of the best scenes are the musical performances. All of Llewyn's solo numbers ache with a depth of feeling that the Coens cannot otherwise match nor rope into some unconscious synthesis. They're pure in themselves and stand alone. And the movie's original song, "Please Mr. Kennedy" - a mock novelty tune about the space program, sung by Isaac, Justin Timberlake[3] and Adam Driver - is a blast of fun that comes closest to capturing what another generation considered clever.
Timberlake wears such an earnest expression throughout that he is barely recognizable - good character work. Carey Mulligan[4] , in a black wig, plays his folk-singing wife, who has become pregnant by Llewyn and absolutely hates Llewyn's guts. It's another unnuanced performance from Mulligan, who seems to have been directed into madcap unpleasantness, yelling every line.
"Inside Llewyn Davis" is a movie about luck, about the human condition, about how life is unfair, but these are general things with no specific connection to the folk era. Just as the Coens use the time period as a gesture without purpose, they give the movie a picaresque structure that becomes a storytelling strategy in place of an idea. Perhaps they hoped it might all come together, all the disparate elements - such as John Goodman[5] , as a veteran musician, barking insults at Llewyn from the back of a car, and then walking and stumbling on two canes.
But it never really adds up. It never becomes more than one scene, followed by the next, and then another. Yet those scenes are easy to watch, and they have the Coens' signature humor. In fact, let's be honest: If this were the Coens' first movie, before we'd come to expect more, "Inside Llewyn Davis" might even be cause for excitement.
Inside Llewyn Davis: Black comedy. Starring Oscar Isaac, John Goodman, Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake. Directed by Ethan Coen[6] and Joel Coen[7] . (R. 105 minutes.)
Mick LaSalle is The San Francisco Chronicle's movie critic. E-mail: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @MickLaSalle[8] [9] [10] [11]
References
- ^ Inside Llewyn Davis (www.sfgate.com)
- ^ Oscar Isaac (www.sfgate.com)
- ^ Justin Timberlake (www.sfgate.com)
- ^ Carey Mulligan (www.sfgate.com)
- ^ John Goodman (www.sfgate.com)
- ^ Ethan Coen (www.sfgate.com)
- ^ Joel Coen (www.sfgate.com)
- ^ Mick LaSalle (www.sfgate.com)
- ^ San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfgate.com)
- ^ mlasalle@sfchronicle.com (www.sfgate.com)
- ^ @MickLaSalle (twitter.com)
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