Inside Llewyn Davis

Success is the luck of the draw, or the bastard child of hope. Tenacity lubricates rejection and encourages denial. Stay with it, brother, take the brickbats, believe in yourself, talent will out. Or not.

The Coen brothers enjoy life's ironic twists. Just when you thought it was safe, etc. With these guys nothing is safe.

Llewyn Davis is a schmuck.. It is 1961, Greenwich Village, New York. The folk scene flourishes in smokey dives - The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul & Mary, Bob Dylan on the way. The Beat poets are hip. Hair is growing and weed remains the drug of choice although H has criminal chic amongst the rich young things.

All that nostalgia! All that romance! The Coens take it and shred it. This is their sick joke. The film is a feelbad rags-to-rags story of a talented singer songwriter who doesn't make it.

Okay, it's only one week in his life, but you can tell he's going down for the third time. Why? He's good looking, talented and all the rest. Trouble is, he's not a nice person.

Should that matter? Some people didn't like Sinatra.

It matters because this is what the Coens are doing, exposing the early New York artistic vibe as hit or miss, depending on who you knew, who you slept with, or whether some record company A&R man was sober enough to remember your name.

Llewyn hitches a lift to Chicago with an eccentric millionaire (John Goodman). This sequence is unexpected and seemingly pointless. Perhaps, that's the message. Less is best.

Oscar Isaac, who plays Llewyn, deserves more. He's the real deal. Don't tell the brothers. They might diss him.