I feel like Inside Llewyn Davis has really drawn the short straw in being out this year. In time for the Oscars this February, it's netted just two nominations (for cinematography and sound mixing - how did this miss Best original score?!), coming up against such giants as American Hustle and Gravity. Which seems a shame, really, given my opinions.
This is going to be two reviews in one, maybe three. Two, because I went to see American Hustle and Inside Llewyn Davis in cinemas. Three, because I saw the latter in the Electric cinema in Birmingham. Actually, I really hope the location of viewing hasn't affected my views on these films, but I found American Hustle a little disappointing for all its pomp and circumstance. It was glamorous, sure, but as I've said before, that doesn't necessarily make for a good movie. I was more taken with the Cohen brothers' greys and browns within Llewyn Davis, which really struck true to the beat lifestyle which was prevalent at the time.
So why did American Hustle get more Oscar noms? Well, at the risk of spoiling, it's a more traditional story. It's a film about trust and friendship and love and it really subverts all those things with the interplay between Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Amy Adams. We have three anti-heroes, into whose lives we get meaningful glimpses - Cooper's FBI agent Richie DiMaso, living with his fiancee's parents, his hair in curlers, yearns for the big score which will get him noticed; Irving Rosenfeld's (Bale) double life, between his wife and his partner-in-crime (Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams respectively), wishes he could be with his kid and Sydney Prosser (Adams). The whole thing is a maze of personal interplay and strange coincidence, Tarantino-esque in its closeness to the characters and the absurd situations they find themselves in (in particular, a brilliantly tense scene between Robert DeNiro as an old, ruthless mob boss and Michael Peña as the fake sheik of operation: Abscam), but the twists and turns of the story are deadly serious for the characters. Everything looks set to fall apart for Irving, as his girlfriend falls in love with the FBI agent and his wife becomes close with a mob lackey who has connections with the target of their operation; can he pull it together and get out on top, or even alive?
The problem is, it's a hustle movie. It's the lateral thinking puzzle of genres: information is withheld from the audience which makes it difficult to guess the ending, and it is only at the end itself that it is revealed. And then it's a big "oh, duh!" moment for those watching because of course, how could I have missed something so obvious! I left feeling disappointed, like I'd just been forced into watching the test-audience ending. That wasn't how the movie should have ended, my brain kept saying. That ending was wrong! This review is one of a man who is trying desperately not to spoil the ending, because the ending was half the problem. The other half was the characters. I felt like they didn't change at all, there was no journey for them, they did not progress or get better in any way. That, again, I put down to it being a hustle movie. I remember watching Hustle on the BBC, the characters would get into a sticky situation, and then they'd get out of it because, as it turned out, they'd already planned for it. And in this lies the problem - the characters don't change at all, because they don't have to. The tension is all down to the fact that we don't see them planning or working at all - in Hustle we'd only see them meeting with their contacts and planning for the situation after the whole thing had cleared and they were sitting in the pub again, and Mickey would still be the same old cocky leader, Ash was still the experienced and cautious foil, they never changed. Only the situation did. At the end of American Hustle, the characters have not developed as a result. No one is any better as a result of the things they've gone through. In another movie that might have been an interesting concept on which to end, but in a movie about con artists which still glamorises the lifestyle of a grifter, it falls down flat.
I feel like I'm ripping into this movie a little too much. A lot of it was actually exhilarating, the interplay between the three main characters was fun and tense at times, there were a lot of very good moments. Jeremy Renner's politician-for-the-people, Carmine Polito, is a very genuine and heartwarming character, and it hurts to see Cooper's FBI agent so ruthlessly gunning for him with the reluctant con artists in tow. Irving's own conflicting feelings about the sting really draw you in, and watching the whole thing unfold through his eyes as his world is torn to pieces before them gives the movie an intense, personal feel. The movie is fun and crazy, and the confusion throughout was exhilarating and exciting. I can't really go into detail, it feels like it's been so long since I saw it, but it's a movie with a lot of heart and soul in it, and even with the hard-to-follow story there was a lot of warmth to the Atlantic City scenes. Also, props to Jennifer Lawrence as Rosalyn; she was almost unrecognisable, her acting is superb as Irving's arrogant, manipulative wife. As I've said, I felt the characters did not develop at all throughout the movie, but despite that the acting was brilliant.
Moving on to Inside Llewyn Davis, and it's here that I begin to worry I may be biased, because the characters didn't really develop in this either. So why did I like this movie so much?
I'll begin by talking about the Electric cinema. I call this a film purist's cinema, and I'm very happy my girlfriend treated me by buying us tickets to see Inside Llewyn Davis there.* The Electric is "the oldest working cinema in the UK", according to the website, and these days it is devoted to showing only the best films. It's more expensive than your average cinema, but seeing as the screens only seat around 70 people and they include sofa seating - from which you can text to order food and drinks from the bar downstairs so as not to miss a thing onscreen - it's worth it as a more personal, friendly experience. I think the best thing about the cinema, however, is the staff; when we came out of the movie the barman told us about his childhood spent watching Star Wars on the television at Christmas, and his grandfather's love of Clint Eastwood movies (a passion my girlfriend shares, incidentally). These are people who really love movies, and that's why they're working there. Staff who love movies as much as the people who are there to watch them make the experience much better, and I think I left all the happier as a result.
But onto the movie. Inside Llewyn Davis tells the story of our eponymous hero, a down-on-his-luck folk guitarist whose bitter attitude towards the world has kept him in his rut for so long. Tired of playing in the same old dingy pub again, but too proud to change his tune (excuse the pun) and write some commercial jingles or even sing on the streets, he surrounds himself with people equally angry and cynical as himself, or else too blissfully unaware of their situation to be unhappy with their lot - here's looking at you, Al Cody (a wonderful, if minor, role played by Adam Driver). Carrying around the Gorfein's cat, which escaped their flat as he was leaving after bunking on their couch for the night, his story is whimsical, almost fairy-tale at times, but simultaneously tragic and upsetting. There are certainly times you feel for Llewyn throughout, as he gets ever shorter on change and life throws him another misery-inducing curveball, but as the folk singer bounds from impressive stoicism to endearing optimism you can't help but laugh as his life takes turn after turn for the worse.
At the end of the day, it's a slice-of-life movie, a very circular film which takes cues from the Beat era in which it is set; in the 1960s the students of America became disillusioned, poets and writers turning to increasingly experimental writing as they tried to find a way out of the drudgery of industrial, post-war America. Inside Llewyn Davis's characters bring forth the attitude and personality of that era, Llewyn's own character a deadbeat with no life of his own, and everyone he knows trying to scrape a living from their music.
Unlike American Hustle, the lack of character development really works here. It serves to highlight, as the movie ends, that Llewyn really is a deadbeat, that he doesn't want to leave the rut that he's in. At the same time, however, there are minor actions which give the ending a hope spot: perhaps he will make something of his life after all? Again, I'm trying not to spoil the ending here. This is all very spoileriffic. But the characters created by Joel and Ethan Coen are all very interesting and unique, and the ways in which Oscar Isaac's Llewyn interacts with them make for some hilarious, heartwarming and revealing moments. In particular, Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake as young couple Jean and Jim, the people Llewyn interacts with most and the two he could be the closest approximation to "friends" with. Adding to that, Llewyn's high-class friends, Ethan Phillips and Robin Bartlett as the Gorfeins, a lecturer and his wife, with whom Llewyn is increasingly at odds and yet cannot abandon and leave them to live a probably happier life. The increasingly bleak atmosphere of the movie, coupled with the twinkling lights of hope-spots dotted intermittently throughout the movie, leave the misery unendingly there, like the lines of the roads Llewyn drives down as he is insulted by John Goodman as Roland Turner. It stretches on to eternity, probably stopping to run over a cat every now and again. In another life, it might be an incredibly depressing movie, but Llewyn's character is ridiculous enough to keep the laughs coming, an Italian-American-Welsh Basil Fawlty, trawling through life the hard way.
The best thing about the movie, though? The music. The folk songs, from duets with a long-dead partner to Llewyn's own solo records, are haunting and beautiful, and they fit the movie incredibly well. And this is why I'm confused: five movies are in the running for Best Original Score, and Inside Llewyn Davis is not one of those. It really makes me wonder, although I haven't seen any of the other movies so who's to say which is better? (Besides the Oscar nomination committee, obviously) But I loved the music of Inside Llewyn Davis, and it was great to notice is as it ran throughout the film. Llewyn's duet with his partner, which plays often, is a hopeful love song, whereas Llewyn's own music is more depressing as it talks about death and bad luck. It shows llewyn's own change in attitude before the events of the film, and the music Llewyn plays throughout showcase his own emotions, and the emotions of others, as he goes throughout the few days in his life which we see played out before us.
So those are the movies I watched. I'm off now to buy the Inside Llewyn Davis soundtrack and maybe try to watch some Hustle. Catch you later, folks!
Adieu!
*NOTE: my girlfriend knows how much I like watching movies, and she often treats me to films I'd like to see in the cinema. So I'd like to take the time to apologise for completely tearing into them in this review. It's far easier to tear down a work of art than it is to make one or commend the creator, and so that is often what I do. But I enjoy going to movies, whether I like them or not, because I love the spectacle of giant screens and booming sound. Heck, even 3D; no matter how many times I decry it as dead, or a fad, I still spring for the RealD glasses when I watch the Hobbit movies. So to my girlfriend, I am sorry for ripping into the movies you take me to see. I love the fact that you come and see movies with me, even if they're ones you're not particularly interested in, and take the time to sit through a film with me, which I will then rip to pieces on this blog. You are totally awesome and I love going to the cinema with you. :3
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