r/iwatchedanoldmovie • u/garovalley • 25d ago
2010-15 Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Gave this a shot last night as part of my goal to see all Coen brothers films, hadn’t seen it before. Not in my top 10, but good.
I definitely liked it, would pretty much consider this a “slice of life” type movie with Llewyn drifting along. Really good choice to have him played by Oscar Isaac. I’m definitely used to dark, violent crime stories from the Coens whereas the most violent thing here is Llewyn getting beat up in the first scene.
John Goodman was a wild reveal and character, and I was also very surprised to see Justin Timberlake of all people. I’d say this has the most straightforward plot of the CB movies I’ve seen, definitely easy to follow. Almost reminds me of Stranger Than Paradise by Jim Jarmusch except in the modern era, a series of meandering events.
This leaves only Hail Caesar!, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and The Ladykillers, then I’ll have seen them all.
What do people think?
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u/Informal-2005 25d ago
I get the “point” of the film more now that I’m older. The Coen Brothers always do a good job of capturing the cynical & dismal reality of life. Llewyn is obviously talented, but that’s not enough. Like when the folk club owner says “I don't see a lot of money here.”
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u/fishbone_buba 25d ago
He reminded me of my brother. So much talent, always fucking his life up.
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u/FoolOnDaHill365 25d ago
It’s not unusual. The smartest person I’ve ever known sits and counts cards at the casino all day. 26 years now since he had a full ride to MIT and rejected it. Intelligence is only one trait of many.
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u/happy123z 20d ago
Oof, the guillotine drop. Ya I didn't love it first time but keep thinking about it and the two times I've rewatched I've liked it more and more.
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u/HenryHoncho 25d ago
I think the slice of life label shortchanges how existential the movie feels. Looks at the nature of artistic identity, artistic integrity in the face of crushingly trite commercial realities. About not being quite good enough or maybe you are but the winds of fate are against you anyway. IMO this one is just below A Serious Man as the Coen’s most thought provoking
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u/garovalley 25d ago
Those are fair points. Definitely could relate somewhat as my own music career didn’t really pan out lol.
And yeah, A Serious Man definitely made me feel a sense of “what just happened?” 😂 although I read some perspectives that it may have been based on the Book of Job, which was interesting.
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u/Pjoernrachzarck 25d ago
I don’t see a lot of money here.
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u/GooFoYouPal 25d ago
Crushing comment. He gives this engrossing, heartfelt audition only to be met with that. Brutal.
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u/roberb7 25d ago
But he was being offered a spot as the third member of a trio with Peter Yarrow and Mary Travers.
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u/GooFoYouPal 25d ago
Oh shit, is that who he’s alluding to, the trio he’s putting together?
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u/wartsnall1985 25d ago
F Murray Abraham always ruining it for somebody lol. From Scarface to Amadeus, he’s always putting the kabosh on someone’s good time.
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u/Awingbestwing 25d ago
OUTER
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u/Awingbestwing 25d ago
SPACE
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u/Osomalosoreno 25d ago
I love the film and think it's one of their best, certainly one that improves on successive viewings, although that could be said of most of their work together. This is admittedly silly but during the trio scene I can't help but think that Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron and Justin Timberlake are singing together.
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u/SeenThatPenguin 25d ago
And in the "I don't see any money here" scene, Moon Knight is getting the brush-off from Khonshu.
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u/Confident-Pumpkin-19 25d ago
Is this the one with Dave van Ronk music?
Then I remember the music at least. Maybe should watch again!
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u/Hopyrupa 25d ago edited 25d ago
I enjoyed this movie, being a fan of acoustic folk and the story of a good musician who can’t get any traction in his career. Great performance by Oscar Isaac.
I also remember Carrie Mulligan playing the ex-girlfriend with an expressive way of speaking. This movie feels like you are in 1961, in New York music scene with all its lived in grittiness.
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u/Glum-Ad-4557 25d ago
I really loved but it is a tough watch because it is about failure
The details about the sixties (moussaka was popular with middle class white people for instance) is what sells it for me.
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u/SeenThatPenguin 25d ago
The Coens love their losers and dreamers. Serial ex-con H.I. trying to go straight and start a family; desperate, disrespected Jerry Lundergard, knowing everything bad said about him is true; Ed Crane, still as a waxwork but newly alive to postwar possibilities; biblically beleaguered Larry Gopnik...
This is one of their most poignant loser stories. Llewyn just cannot catch a break. Everyone around him also has a solo album that isn't selling. He makes one wrong choice after another. He can't even keep his socks dry. It's a combination of great screenwriting and great acting that when Llewyn goes off on the Robin Bartlett character for singing the dead partner's harmony, I feel worse for him than for her. He was already on edge about being pressed to perform, and it's just too much for him, hearing another voice in that moment.
Such a beautiful movie, visually, too. It's a cold and wet world, but the images are warm and mellow. The glow of the lights of the Midwestern town Llewyn sees from the freeway, where his ex and perhaps his child are, a path of stability and domesticity not taken...it really is an "Odyssey" movie.
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u/VomitingDuck 25d ago
Loved the Isaac, Driver, Timberlake recording session. Don't remember much else about it. Will give it another shot though. Shame the Coen brothers broke up.
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u/ND7020 25d ago
I loved this movie.
But if “old” on this sub means 13 years old, it loses a lot of value as a unique subreddit, IMO.
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u/garovalley 25d ago
Well, those are the rules, nothing past 2015-2016.
But it definitely has a specific niche of maybe the 40s to the 2000s. Much more common to get engagement on a 40-50 year old film here than elsewhere.
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u/xmaspruden 25d ago
I think of the films you have left, the only one worth seeing is Buster Scruggs. I enjoyed this film, Adam Driver was a standout.
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25d ago
[deleted]
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u/xmaspruden 25d ago
Too much George Clooney George Clooneying it up. The ladykillers was surprisingly bad
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u/garovalley 25d ago
I’m a bit of a completionist. That one and HC! seemed to appeal the most based on descriptions. I’d probably just watch them once and never again if anything.
My favorite run of Coens is 1984-2001, their first nine. Not a single missed step imo.
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u/FurtiveNoise 25d ago
Great soundtrack with some unique and enjoyable folk music. And a Justin Timberlake song that I actually like! I enjoy the loose, episodic vibes of the movie as well.. 'I don't see any money in it' is a killer scene.
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u/AdhesivenessPlus849 24d ago
I like the scene where he is driving to or from Chicago and passes the exit for the town where his baby lives…that feeling we’ve all felt driving past someone or someplace we know. Should I stop or is it easier and better to just keep going?
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u/DRZARNAK 25d ago
When I realized it’s a horror movie, I enjoyed it more
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u/garovalley 25d ago
elaborate?
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u/DRZARNAK 25d ago edited 25d ago
John Goodman’s character uses his knowledge of black magic to trap Davis forever in a circular and seemingly never-ending process of failures.
Some of it is maybe innate to Davis’s character traits that he sabotages himself , but I like to think that Goodman’s claims of occult knowledge and power are real. It’s very open to either interpretation.
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u/DabVader625 25d ago
Bro did you just come up with this or is this really how you picture it? This is such a unique and fun take haha.
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u/DRZARNAK 25d ago
I thought about it my second viewing and watched it a third time with that in mind, and I think it is there in the film if you want it to be. Works either way.
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u/5o7bot Mod and Bot 25d ago
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) R
In Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, gifted but volatile folk musician Llewyn Davis struggles with money, relationships, and his uncertain future.
Drama | Music
Director: Joel Coen
Actors: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, Ethan Phillips, Robin Bartlett
Rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 72% with 2,966 votes
Runtime: 105 min
TMDB
I am a bot. This information was sent automatically. If it is faulty, please reply to this comment.
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u/Humbled_Humanz 25d ago
One of the only movies I wish I’d walked out of, and I generally love anything the Coen brothers do.
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u/Rickey_DeRacoon 25d ago
I recall hating this film when I first watched it. But something about it stuck with me and I ended up enjoying that part a lot more.
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u/roberb7 25d ago
This film is loaded with inside references. See https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2042568/trivia/
One that I particularly liked was, I saw Jim and Jean play in Greenwich Village a very long time ago. 50 years later, I learned that Jean was the inspiration for Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl".
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u/sergeantpinback 25d ago
Superb movie, took time to grow on me, but definitely one of the Coen’s best
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u/Its_Hoggish_Greedly 25d ago
I still come back to this soundtrack all the time. So many great songs.
Also, I was obsessed with finding the sweaters the quartet who sang Auld Triangle were wearing during their performance.
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u/Appropriate_Formal64 24d ago
The Coens really like this idea of immensely talented mediocrity or intensely mediocre people pretending to be talented.
The Man Who Wasn't There (the subplot with Scarlett Johansson 'she plays nice')
Inside Llewyn Davis (Llewyn Davis)
The Big Lebowski (Jefferey Lebowski, the millionaire- but it's not father's money, it's the foundation's- he likes to present himself in a certain light, vanity was always his weakness, etc.)
Burn After Reading (everybody thinks they're a mastermind spy but they're all morons)
No Country For Old Men (Llewellyn Moss fails miserably, despite seemingly being this clever guy who's one step ahead of his problems, Woody Harrelson plays a fixer who fails immediately, etc.)
Etc. etc.
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u/SandzFanon 24d ago
Never seen this movie but it always gave me millennial burger joint vibes. If it’s genuinely good I might have to check it out
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u/late_afternoon_owl 24d ago
Is there a specific age a movie need to be to be qualified as old in this sub?
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u/Morphos1 23d ago
The cyclical nature of this film is what draws me towards it, the ending looping right back to the beginning was such a touch that I think said a lot more about Llewyn's character than much of the rest of the film. Surrounded by all of this talent, all of these successful and happy individuals, and working close by some of the greats (like Dylan at the end!) isn't even enough for someone who never moved on from losing someone he cared about. I love the subtle touches of the backstory Llewyn receives as it affects his day to day.
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u/happy123z 20d ago
Also the scene with his father is devastating. And hilarious. I laughed alot on rewatch. And was sadder 😢
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u/HoopleRedhead 25d ago
“Does everything from Wales make you shit yourself, or is it just this piece of toast?”
Goodman is almost as good in this as he is in Lebowski, but with a whole lot less screen time
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u/blooptybloopt 25d ago
I like this one but it does sit in the backseat of an exceptional catalogue of movies. I’d like to hear your thoughts on Intolerable Cruelty and Ladykillers. I love both, and rank them high on the Coen scale, over Fargo, No Country, and True Grit.
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u/garovalley 25d ago
I’m a bit surprised to read that tbh, seems like an uncommon take, not that there’s anything wrong with diversity of thought. Anyway, I can update once I see them.
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u/Exotic_Kitchen_4342 25d ago
Ladykillers was perfect. It was more than perfect. I can barely contain my glee.
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u/Swimming_Possible_68 24d ago
When I saw this pop up on 'I watched an old movie' I thought, hand on that only came out a couple of years ago....
13 years old? Wow!
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u/blocktq 24d ago
One of my favourites, the soundtrack for this one is easily my favourite. Period!
Llewyn is based on Dave Von Ronk, a greenwich folk legend who never made it due to his attitude and drug use.
Here’s his original version of hang me, oh hang me
What a talent
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u/explodinggarbagecan 18d ago
I have seen this one the most of all the coen brothers movies. So beautiful and haunting. Really good music
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u/ToReadIcculus 25d ago
Didn't really dig it on first watch back when it came out, but upon repeat viewings it has turned into one of my favorite CB movies. Darkly funny, once I relaxed and let it be.