thedarkknight-99999 It's so funny, it's so smart, it's so profound, it's so bleak, it's a pure Coen Brothers' gem!(9/10)

Josh Larson I'm not sure what all the talk was about this movie. I love the Coen Brothers, but I just didn't get this one. I kept waiting for it to click, like so many of their movies, but this one I just kept waiting and waiting and it never clicked. Maybe it was over my head? Maybe I need to watch it again, but I really don't want to.

wyldeone2 This film made me feel the physical cold; the snow, wind, rain along with the gray skies. The atmosphere magnified the way of the world. It reminds me that we are all on a journey through life. Better choices may glean us better rewards and less suffering, but in the end we all die some how and some place.Llewyn's music was good as far as ability and performance but I tend to agree with the character played by F. Murray Abraham. He said he did not see a lot of money being generated from it. Although music with a lugubrious nature has done so, part of the problem was Llewyn's look. The hippie movement had not yet arrived in 1961. A clean cut look was still needed to succeed. Think of real life folk acts like; Peter, Paul and Mary, The Smothers Brothers or The Kingston Trio, any male singers with a neatly trimmed goatee, even a young Bob Dylan.The other message in this film was lack of responsibility. Llewyn was more compassionate towards the cat than his two known lady friends. It seemed to be that having an abortion was a standard solution to a heat of the moment careless pregnancy. But it does take two to tango.The movie went full circle from nowhere to nowhere. The Coen's did a good job of showing the struggle to become famous and the hardships it can cause for oneself and others directly and indirectly involved. At least he was not a heroin user (yet). Hopefully, Llewyn decides to go electric in 1963 at Newport. Rated 7.3/10, slightly better than some 7.0 films.

sharpobject2424 ** SPOILERS **Inside Llewyn Davis personally swept me away the first time I saw it and my head was swimming with the events throughout the story and the interpretations of them as I understood it. Please keep in mind as you read this that I'm speaking of art and interpretations are all they could possibly be, not anything concrete. But I have gathered that some people don't take much from the movie while I found at least the overall theme of an endless cycle to be pretty much blatant. Anywho this review is mostly for those viewers. So the most salient theme like I said is that of the endless cycle we follow Llewyn through. The relentless, crushing cycle of Llewyns life and the painful monotony of it all is only magnified by the casual way the viewer glimpses into it, as if it's inconsequential when the story starts or ends. I felt that in the last leg of the movie it was very obvious that this was simply another week in the life of Llewyn Davis. The constant familiar occurrences of a person making the same decisions in the same place, something not exclusive to a struggling musician but relevant all the same. It can be argued that none of these events are actually very significant, but simply tell Llewyns revolving story. The end is a kind of repeat of the beginning, but I feel convinced that some things may have not been there before when Llewyn experienced it. First I found that the poster Llewyn notices before his last gig seems very important. It's a movie poster that says "The Fantastic Journey" or something of the sort, a stimulus that to me suggests that Llewyns repetitive misadventures are not the end-all, but instead a means to an end. In other words the idea as I'm explaining it is that perhaps his story was not meaningless and it was a journey taking him to whatever's next. He plays his last gig and is socked by the same or similar goon as he was in the beginning, while Bob Dylan performs at the Gaslight, probably for the first time. If the goon represented the folk scene, or Llewyns environment in general (both of which were constantly "kicking him down" or whatever), then Llewyn literally says goodbye to that life at the end as the goon is driven away. This is placed perfectly with Bob Dylans performance because the monumental success of Dylans career was sure to be the final nail in Llewyns coffin. I also like to think that maybe there were signs earlier in the movie that Llewyn was staging his gradual exit. For instance, he got his shipping papers in order but there was a setback. So of course here he is playing The Gaslight again, and the cycle continues. Only now he is one big step closer to moving on and possibly, finally, being released from the cycle. So it can even be interpreted that any other week in this story is similar, but maybe peppered with these small steps. Another example of this is how he didn't let the cat out of the apartment the second time he left. Another small step. (The cat is a whole different review worth of speculation btw). Exceptional film. Perfectly executed I thought, and with a real artistic integrity. I think some people are bored by the music scenes, and I'm a musician so I really can't comment on that too objectively, but at the risk of sounding smug I can't help but say that if you didn't have the patience for the music scenes in this movie, or Treme, or things of the sort, then you really might not love music as much as you probably say you do.