"Inside Llewyn Davis" at Durham Library Thursday

Movie Notes by Don Bourret (donb41@comcast.net)

Imagine spending a couple of boring hours in a dimly lit room full of strangers waxing philosophical over something you know little and care less about. That’s the feeling I had watching Inside Llewyn Davis, the latest film from the prolific writing/producing/directing team of Joel and Ethan Coen. I have been a Coen brothers fan for thirty years, going back to the darkly comic Blood Simple and on through such gems as True Grit, No Country For Old Men, Miller’s Crossing, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou and that blackest of comedies, Fargo, among others. But this one left me cold, literally I suppose given its wintry setting.

The film follows a week in the life of a fictional young folk singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961. Guitar in tow, huddled against the unforgiving New York winter, he is struggling to make it as a musician against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, some of them of his own making. The recreation of 1961 New York City in a blustery winter is convincing, but the movie has no one I could care about, least of all its prickly lead character, very well played by actor/singer Oscar Isaacs. In the DVD’s Bonus Feature, the Coens say how pleased they were to find both a serious actor and a credible musician in Isaacs; and he certainly did an excellent job. Llewyn Davis is an irritating parasite, sponging off anyone he can and whining an awful lot. He is in every scene and is annoying in each one, not just to me but to everyone around him. I know this is a character study, but even an unlikeable principal character should be able to engage the viewer over time or at least once in a while. Llewyn Davis is just no one you would want to be inside.

In all fairness, I admit that I am not a folk-music fan. After Rap and Gregorian Chants, these are my least favorite songs; and admittedly this skewed any enjoyment I might otherwise have found. I’m sure folk fans love this movie, as it is awash in folk songs with music supervision by legendary T Bone Burnett. Supposedly it is set in the “lost moment” of folk music, a period when the “traditional” style exemplified by Pete Seeger is opening up to a more contemporary style typified by Bob Dylan. Or so says the DVD’s Bonus Feature, and who am I to argue with that?

I admit also that I may be in the minority in my feelings about this film. Critics and fans alike have referred to it in terms such as “brilliant,” “can’t miss,” “deeply satisfying,” “haunting,” ‘beautifully detailed,” “touchingly melancholy and slyly funny,” “stroke of genius,” “best since Fargo.” The NY Times called it the “Best Movie of 2013,” and it won the Grand Prix at the Cannes film Festival. But there are enough others of us who regret it as two hours wasted that we’ll never get back; two and a half hours if you count the wearisome Bonus Feature.

So the jury is hung, and it’s anyone’s call.