December 14, 2013 -- This is a movie that has won a lot of awards and will win more. The Coen Brothers have a lot of fans in the movie industry. It might also win an Oscar for best song, with T Bone Burnett in charge of the music, but I think this movie missed the mark when it comes to the folk music of this era.

There is good music in the film, and one singer with a really good voice, but he isn't the lead actor. He is a supporting actor, Stark Sands, who plays folk singer Troy Nelson. Sands sings Tom Paxton's standard, “The Last Thing on My Mind” with a beautiful, clear voice. He also sings the standard “500 Miles” as part of a trio. The other song that sticks with you is “Farewell,” written and performed by Bob Dylan (an actor who looks like Dylan is seen on stage, but what you hear is a recording of Dylan).

While many folk songs are upbeat, with faster tempos like “Rock Island Line” and “Greenback Dollar” and some have Calypso influences, there almost none of that kind of folk music in this film, and what little there is is forgettable. The real hallmark of folk music of this era (the film is set in New York in 1961) is message music, protest music. Folk music fueled the civil rights and anti-war movements. Message music is notably absent in this film.

Most of the music you hear in this film is slow, sad music. Some of it sounds like it was written a hundred years earlier. I lived through this era and I know this music. The music in this film is not the folk music I loved as a youth. It isn't the music of the Weavers, the Kingston Trio or Peter, Paul and Mary.

The central character in this story is a desperate, homeless folk singer Llewyn Davis (played by Oscar Isaac of “Drive”). Davis lives on the kindness of friends, sleeping on couches in other people's apartments and living on borrowed food and cigarettes. He makes barely enough money to keep body and soul together. His agent, Mel Novikoff (played by Jerry Grayson of “Striptease”) is ripping Davis off.

Davis keeps insisting that his music career is what “pays the rent,” but he doesn't pay any rent. He doesn't have an apartment. Davis had some success when he recorded with a partner, but he wants to be a solo act. In desperation, he heads to Chicago where he auditions for another agent, Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham of “Dead Man Down”). He sings another of his melancholy, slow, unoriginal songs for Bud, who tells him he doesn't see any money in Davis as a solo artist.

Grossman tells Davis he could be successful in a group. He is putting together a trio (this is how Peter, Paul and Mary was formed) but Davis will have none of it. He wants to be a solo act and play his unappealing, slow, melancholy music. Grossman asks Davis if he has had any success and Davis says he did when he was part of a duo. Grossman says he should get back together with his partner. “That's good advice,” Davis says, even though his former singing partner is dead.

Davis' personal life is as much of a mess as his professional life. He has gotten a married woman, Jean (Carey Mulligan of “The Great Gatsby”) pregnant and he has the gall to ask the woman's husband, Jim (Justin Timberlake) for money to pay for Jean's abortion. When he talks to the doctor who can do the abortion (this is long before Roe V. Wade) he finds out that he has a child that he didn't know about. He plays music for his senile father, who can no longer control his bowel movements. He tells his sister later that he has seen his own future and now knows what he has to look forward to.

Then there's the cats. A house cat escapes from a friend's apartment and Davis spends a considerable amount of time trying to catch the cat and get it back, with fairly predictable results. He also ends up on a long car trip with a cat. Later, he has has other cat encounters. Davis has no luck with cats, or his musical career, either. Davis is a master of futility. He gets what he deserves, including a beating from the irate husband of a performer he heckles. The Coen Brothers, who wrote and directed this film, liked this scene so much, they show it twice.

Although the movie does have its funny moments, it is mainly a downer with an unappealing, self-centered main character who sings unappealing songs. It works as a character study and an illustration of how tough the music business is, and was. This is unusual for a Coen brothers film in that maybe nobody dies. There may, or may not, be deaths in the movie, but they are not directly shown. Then again, this film is so dark and downbeat I kept thinking someone was going to drop dead at any time.

One character who almost dies is Roland Turner (John Goodman of “Argo”). His role in this movie is as puzzling as the cats, but he does provide color. More interesting is Roland Turner's mysterious driver, Johnny Five (Garrett Hedlund of “On the Road”). Johnny Five doesn't say much, but when he does, it seems to have some weight. Turner talks a lot, but what he says doesn't amount to much. The Coen Brothers are very good at peppering their movies with these offbeat characters and supporting performances.

While there are some good songs in the film, there are problems. First, you've got actors trying to sing with varying degrees of success. Second, the music is a tiny slice of the folk music spectrum and it doesn't represent folk music of that era well at all. If you put all this music in a stage show, it wouldn't be a good one because there isn't enough variety in it. The main character is a jerk, not the kind of guy I would want to hang out with for over an hour. In fact, most of the characters are irritating.

If you are a fan of the Coen brothers, you'll probably eat this up. If you aren't, you'll probably wonder what all those awards are about. Then again, if you thought the music in “Once” was great, you ought to love this, because the music in this film is way better than that. This film rates a B.

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Copyright © 2013 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
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