Where There's a Will

Given the torrent of absolute crap that comes from Hollywood’s movie factories year after year, I’m always grateful and hopeful when a new Coen Brothers’ film emerges.

Well, probably the nicest thing I can say about this movie is that “it didn’t suck.” Not unlike another of the brothers’ works, The Big Lebowski, Inside Llewyn Davis has a storyline that snakes around but never really goes anywhere. It’s certainly not the cast’s fault — Oscar Isaac does a fine job portraying Davis as a talented but struggling pre-Dylan folk musician who simply can’t catch a break, due to either bad luck, timing, or choices. Justin Timberlake plays his friend Jim, another East Village folkie who performs with his wife Jean, who we learn early on is pregnant with what may be Davis’ child.  As usual, John Goodman makes an appearance (this time as an aging, junkie jazz musician).

The music helps carry the movie (like another Coen Bros. flick, O Brother Where Art Thou), and there are a few laughs here and there, but with no sympathetic characters to root for, I don’t think Inside will be remembered as fondly as most of their other movies.