Inside Llewyn Davis

New York, 1961. Folk music isn't big yet, and Llewyn Davis is already defeated. Oscar Isaac plays a troubadour who fails to make it big. The Coens paint a melancholic portrait, permeated by beatnik culture, existential helplessness and a structure like a Möbius strip: no beginning, no end, just repetition with slight shifts. The film seems casual, almost small – and yet it is pure Coen concentration. The cat runs away, the music remains.
(Otto Römisch)