Inside Llewyn Davis

A bleakly funny week in the life of a struggling singer set in the pre-Dylan music scene of 1961 Greenwich Village, featuring an elusive ginger tabby.

Folksinger Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is losing his footing in life. Unable to support himself through his music and unwilling to do anything else, he couch-surfs, alienates his friends – fellow musicians Jim (Justin Timberlake) and Jean (Carey Mulligan) – and scrambles for money and gigs. He has talent, but the rising star narrative we might expect from such a set-up seems forever out of reach.

Cats weave their way through the storyline just as gracefully as they jump in and out of downtown apartment windows. Llewyn’s inability to pay close attention to one free-wheeling feline in particular sets in play a series of events that takes a nightmarish turn on an ill-conceived road trip to Chicago.

Like many Coen Brothers films, Inside Llewyn Davis resists classification. It offers a nuanced portrait of an artist caught between ambition and self-sabotage, set against a wry evocation of a folk music scene that was on the verge of being changed forever by a new breed of singer-songwriters.

– Fiona Trigg, Senior Curator