Movie Comments: Inside Llewyn Davis

Illustration (c) 2014 by O. Douglas Jennings. 

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I finally caught a viewing of Inside Llewyn Davis on DVD the other night. It was a movie I had eagerly anticipated watching from the first glimpse I had of it’s trailer last year. It being a kind of historical fiction --a period piece, if you will-- with a complicated, nuanced artistic protagonist, I could immediately tell from trailer and clips that I would enjoy this film.  I missed watching it in the local cineplex but viewing it on DVD at home on my widescreen TV with it’s decent sound system worked well for me. Besides that, the DVD provided the opportunity for me to see the “Making Of…” featurette in the extras which is a treat that trumps the theater experience as far as I’m concerned.

I could identify with the main character, Llewyn. An artist who loves to perform and create, he struggles with maintaining his integrity in the marketplace. He can be his own worst enemy. But the movie has a sweetness to it and although his personality can be obnoxious, Oscar Isaac’s performance lends the character a good measure of sympathy. As the movie ends, I thought of it as also being about second chances. And then there is the unforgettable cat.

I first noticed Isaac in movie The Nativity Story. I liked his sensitive, credible and nuanced portrayal of Joseph. Although he has been in several films since then, it wasn’t until the movie Drive that the Guatemala-born actor caught my attention again as the ill-fated husband of Carey Mulligan’s character. Both Isaac and Mulligan are superb in “Llewyn Davis” as they share screen time again, giving substantial life to very different characters than the ones they portrayed in Drive.

The music of Inside Llewyn Davis touched me. For one thing, I enjoy Isaac’s masterful performances with his strong, winsome, tenor voice accompanied by very competent guitar playing. I bought some of the songs from the sound track and enjoy them a lot. To me, the most moving song is The Death of Queen Jane about Henry VIII’s only wife to bear him a son and then who died in childbirth. In the movie, Llewyn sings the song in an audition before a Chicago concert hall director who is unmoved. He says he can’t see any money to be made in that song. The scene illustrates the core frustration of all artists who are committed to their craft yet labor without commercial acclaim. It’s a dilemma that the movie resolves well by showing the exquisite value of art at all levels.