Inside Llewyn Davis (2014)

Llewyn Davis is a struggling folk singer in Greenwich Village, New York, in 1961. Gloriously, and in typical Coen Brother’s style, that’s it. That’s everything.

The film is a vignette of a man frozen in his own endurance against a set of circumstances which really aren’t rewarding his dedication to his art. It is a black comedy of errors that offers no respite to its central character in the way of plot development or hope. It sounds bleak, it is bleak, but it’s also sweet, funny and utterly absorbing.

Oscar Isaac gives a measured performance of give-up glances and hundred-mile stares that invites sympathetic sighs despite Llewyn clearly being the washed-up loser everybody is telling him he is. The supporting cast fill out the world around him with a mixture of dedicated artists (Justin Timberlake, Adam Driver), ageing music business types (F. Murray Abraham) and a very angry ex-lover (Carey Mulligan). All commit themselves to colouring the Coen’s barren world of frustration and sterile ambition.

Talking of colouring the Coen’s world, the film looks beautiful. French cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel marinades every scene in the muted browns, greens and blues of old folk album covers enhancing the coldness and melancholy of the film immeasurably.

As Llewyn stumbles from mishap to mishap, he finds his path repeatedly crossed by a series of ginger tabby cats who may or may not be the same animal. Whether they are or not is a tease. As Joel Coen said himself “the film doesn’t really have a plot. That concerned us at one point; that’s why we threw the cat in.”

If anything, the cat(s) are just a parallel to Llewyn, highlighting the randomness of fortune. Some incarnations of the cat are lucky; others (the final one) are very unlucky. Perhaps the key difference between Llewyn and the cat is demonstrated in one of the best sequences in the film where Llewyn journeys on the subway with the cat held carefully over his shoulder. Eyes glazed over, Llewyn stares at the floor. Suddenly we are given a POV of the cat who is looking out of the window at the stations as they whizz by. Excited by the sights, the cat makes a dash for it. Proactive and outward looking, the cat embodies the perfect contrast to Llewyn’s introversion and inertia.

The Coens’ direction is, as always, delicate and purposeful. Long single takes of music performances add a sense of truth and grit which mirror the themes of folk songs in general. There are no cutaways faking a complete performance through a compilation of separate takes – it all happens live (including sound, which was, for the most part, recorded live on set.) Llewyn himself is rarely framed in a shot with others. Even if he is having a conversation with someone sitting on the same park bench, still he is alone.

Apart from staying honest to a range of characters and the wit with which the ear-candy dialogue is constructed, perhaps the biggest achievement of the script is in not painting Llewyn as a consummate victim. We feel sorry for the hard time he is having but his laconic reaction to roadblocks and the sanctity with which he preaches about his art despite being so dependent on his friends lead us to suspect that perhaps Carey Mulligan’s character Jean is right when she says:

“You don’t wanna go anywhere. And that’s why all the same shit is gonna keep happening to you – because you want it to.”

Having us empathise with Llewyn’s melancholia despite his cyclical self-made woe is the key to why Inside Llewyn Davis is such an exquisite film. The look of the film, its period detail and precision direction just amplifies this engagement. A joy.

Flight (2013)

For a director celebrated for his groundbreaking special effects work, Flight is a confident and accomplished return to live-action filmmaking for Robert Zemeckis. The film is a character study of genius pilot Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) who saves the lives of nearly every passenger on board when his plane encounters a catastrophic failure mid-flight. Forced into rolling the aircraft upside down to stabilise an uncontrollable nosedive, Whip escapes the crash landing with minor injuries and is branded a hero by the adoring public. What they are unaware of is Whip’s toxicology report which reveals him to have been heavily drunk and under the influence of cocaine while flying the plane.

Directed very simply (mid-shots all the way), Zemeckis’ camera is quiet and unobtrusive, allowing the actors to play the drama through without too much stylish trickery. Despite this, he delivers the special effects-laden plane crash sequence with as much gusto as you’d expect. It is, up to now, the most gripping I’ve seen and will do nothing to soften my only recurring anxiety dream.

Main man Denzel Washington is superb. He gives the impression of a highly skilled professional convinced he can hide his alcoholism with his genius (even to his own eyes) – a subtle trick. He isn’t likeable but, due to the performance, we understand his disease and struggle with him all the way. (The groans around me as Whip slips again and again into drunkenness were nearly loud enough even to drown out the screening’s ubiquitous popcorn rustle.)

My one main problem with Flight was strangely its most enjoyable element – I’m talking about Whip’s drug dealer, played by John Goodman who seems so alien and removed from the stern drama that his presence threatens to twist it upside down into a completely different film. It argues with the overall preachy tone of the film. I never enjoy being preached to, but at least if you’re a preachy film, don’t dish out the light relief fun drug thing at the same time to punctuate the lecture in an attempt to make it palatable. Every time the pony-tailed dealer shows up, The Rolling Stones let loose in the soundtrack and Goodman delivers enough good jokes to conflict with the film’s message.

It might work if it wasn’t for the soundtrack and the camera language (the only stylish touches Zemeckis adds are crash zoom cocaine rushes and rack focus on a heroin needle) which back Goodman up. It is as if the film is saying “Drugs are ruining this man’s life. Also, here’s a bit where we’re going all Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with non-judgemental, light-hearted, some-people-have-a-good-time-on drugs segments… But seriously though, drugs are bad… But actually look at John Goodman here, isn’t he funny?… But SERIOUSLY, addiction=bad.”

The reason it jarred so strongly with me is that, while I appreciate the pacing, the struggle, the drama of Flight, Goodman’s interjections reminded me that the film I’d kind of rather be watching would be the one where his character was the lead. The writers don’t help themselves with this character, or maybe they simply didn’t count on Goodman doing such a good job.

The scene where writer John Gatins really does shine is for me the standout moment of the film: Whips first meeting with Nicole (Kelly Reilly) on the hospital’s stairwell. He is recovering from a plane crash, she is recovering from a heroin overdose and in trundles the character named in the script as “Gaunt Young Man” who is most definitely not recovering from terminal cancer. The ensuing conversation is paced brilliantly, and the perspective offered from the Gaunt Young Man who is both upbeat and resigned to his fate is the catalyst for Whip and Nicole to try to make a life recovering together.

Ultimately, Flight is a Hollywood film and certain ideologies have to be maintained, events must have their consequences and ruined lives must be redeemed. These aren’t plot spoilers; from the moment Whip wakes up in hospital after the crash, we all know how the story is going to shake out. But the film knows we know and the important thing is how engaged we are from A to B. Thankfully the answer is: quite engaged. Invested enough to recommend it as a good watch, which is what I’m doing now.