Inside Llewyn Davis

Directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen

(R)

***

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For fans of the Coen brothers or folk music, this semicomic homage to the early 1960s New York folk scene “can hardly help striking a chord,” said Anthony Lane in The New Yorker. “Yet something in the movie fails to grip, and it has to do with the hero.” Oscar Isaac plays the role given to him, but the fictional singer-guitarist Llewyn Davis proves to be “such a grouch and an ingrate” as he pursues his dream of stardom that we’re never really rooting for him. The excellent surrounding cast does its best to keep us engaged, said Richard Corliss in Time. John Goodman gives us a crippled bluesman who helps make a road trip the film’s best section, while Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake make an oddly matched married singing duo. Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen offer myriad other pleasures as well, said David Edelstein in New York magazine. They “toy brilliantly with movie tropes,” for instance, and “layer insults and non sequiturs like no one else.” The soundtrack is brilliant too—-evidence that, in the Coens’ world, even bad people can find transcendence a few minutes at a time.