Thank goodness for the escaped cat subplot in Joel and Ethan Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis. Without it the film would have kinda dissipated. This is one of the Coen Brother's mood films, the ones that rely less on a coherent plot than on evoking an atmosphere or mood. Think more A Serious Man (2009) than Fargo (1996) or True Grit (2010). Really, the film frequently just seems like an excuse to string together a series of extended musical numbers. Not that I'm complaining: the music is all fantastic and fantastically performed. Bruno Delbonnel's cinematography transforms the film into one of the Coen Brother's most visually striking achievements. There are scenes in nightclubs where singers perform under single rays of light that are so beautiful they make the heart hurt. But what is the film about? In my opinion, it's about getting left behind. The eponymous Llewyn Davis always seems one step behind the times, perpetually wandering here and there in search of a break that will never come. Funny then that the character I relate the most to in this film isn't Davis but the orange tabby cat he picks up, loses, and supposedly hits with a car halfway to Chicago.
7/10
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