I can’t believe it’s been a decade since this movie came out. It feels like it came out just a few years ago. It’s been on my watchlist forever. The reason I didn’t watch it back in 2013 is because it got so much hype that I didn’t think that the movie could meet my expectations. So i shelved it… till now.
At first glance this is probably the most Coen Brothers-esque movie, yet somehow the least Coen Brothers-esque movie ever made. I often say that the Coen’s like to make movies about people that don’t know what’s going on. (see Lebowski, Fargo, Burn After Reading, etc.) And in this film we have a character that knows what’s going on (his musical career is flaming out), but he doesn’t know what’s happening around him, as he surfs from couch to couch looking for a cat that may or may not have a scrotum.
Where this movie differs from the rest of the Coen’s filmography is that the stakes feel so low. Even in Barton Fink, where the main conflict was writer’s block, it felt like the whole world was about to burn down. For Llweyn Davis, his world seems muted. It’s almost like watching a indie drama from the early 2000s. Except this one has the Coen’s strange dark sense of humor.
Davis does what he’s suppose to do. Plays gigs. Makes an album, hitchhikes to Chicago to get the affirmation he thinks he deserves. But all he gets is F. Murray Abraham saying, “I see no money money here.” crushing words for a man that was looking for his last hope.
But I guess that’s the point of the movie. It’s about failure. Not that the Coen’s would know anything about that. I’m sure failure to them is a success by most people’s standards. But they do know good music and they know how to give us an emotional sucker punch, as in the last scenes we see Davis exit his go-to club and Bob Dylan take the stage. So close to success, only if he had a few more dollars and a few more friends.
I guess I should mention the soundtrack. It’s currently playing on my Spotify. It’s got some of that top tier folksy songs that I can dig. I was kinda shocked to see just how much music was in this movie. And that the Coen’s would let entire songs play out in one take.
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