needed more john goodman

I liked it. Not one of the best Coen bros films but right up there with the better ones. I do agree the film loses steam but not until AFTER Chicago. I'm not a fan of Goodman usually but he's good here.

Until I watched the film - I always read the title as Inside Llewelyn Davis as in LOU-ELLEN. Never heard the name Llewyn before.

Isn't that the porno version?

I thought this was interesting but flawed. Kind of middle/lower tier Coens for me. Oscar Isaac and the music are pretty great, though. B

Grade A Large

And free range.

um wow. I wasn't paying a ton of attention to movies at the time, but I had /no idea/ the coens directed that true grit remake a few years back. how the fuck did that fact slip by me...I loved that movie.

that's so weird.

thinking on it, I /must/ have known at some point, either leading up to or after that it was a coen bros movie...I wasn't that out of it back then. but i was legitimately shocked to see it on yr lists and had to google it to confirm that you weren't all crazy, so it certainly feels like I genuinely didn't know. I dunno it's weird, not sure what's up with that.


I wonder if I posted thoughts in this forum on it. lemme check

kypade is basically finished. He will never again be able to trust his memory and perception.

It's decent but one of my least favorite Coens. The movie relies on Llewyn being more ordinary than he believes he is, but this also makes him less compelling than he could have been.

The Chicago trip and Roland/Johnny Five (the original Jay and Silent Bob?) was definitely the highlight for me and tapped into Coens brilliance.

The only part I don't get about the chronology is how he walked past a movie released in 1963 (The Incredible Journey), did they flash forward to 63 for one scene? The waking up/cat out the door part actually makes sense if you analyze it. There is two time jumps in the first 7 minutes ish. It starts on the night of the 24 when he gets beat up, then jumps to the morning of the 24 waking up and writing the note. Then he puts on a record and it jumps back to the morning of the 17, starting with him exiting the door and the cat following him.

The Chicago trip is actually the point, where the movie lost me completely. I have seen it for a second time recently, to see if I missed out on something the first time due to being tired. Nope. I like the music a lot and the setting and Isaac does some great work, but once he embarks on a trip to Chicago, I'm just bored out of my mind.

nononononono

The poster for The Incredible Journey is just an intentional (minor) anachronism. Similar to, if you will, the characters listening to Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in The Bling Ring.

The only "time jump" is when it goes from the alleyway beating to him starting his day in the older couple's apartment a few days earlier.

Nah, having watched it on a downloaded screener I was able to check and there was two jumps in a row at the beginning. Llewyn writes the note apologizing for his behaviour the morning before he plays the Gaslight with the alley/Dylan. However, when Llewyn lets the cat out of the apartment it is a week before this. Which we know because we then see a week's events happen in order for the rest of the movie.

So despite it looking like Llewyn writes a note apologizing and then lets the cat out on first viewing, they happen a week apart. He writes the note at the end of the week/narrative while the cat gets out at the beginning of the week. Then at the end of the movie, we once again see that he writes the note apologizing at the end of the week, and when he leaves the apartment because it's the end of the week instead of the beginning, he now blocks the cat from getting out - it is a different scene

The other explanation is to say there are NO time jumps, the film is in linear order and the beginning and end scenes were not a flashback, but simply an identical repeat - in a Coens playing with the supernatural, Llewyn is in a Greek purgatory type of way. But if one doesn't take that route, there is for sure two jumps at the beginning. One from the night where he gets beat up to that same morning, then from there to a week before in the same apartment

I have a headache now.

I saw the film in a theatre, and I understood it as:

1. Llewyn plays at the Gaslight. He goes to the alley to meet a "friend." He is punched. Cut to:
2. Llewyn in the apartment, starting his day. He writes a note apologizing for unseen behavior the night before (to tease the audience's impulse to understand this as a linear continuation of the fight sequence, though it is not). The cat escapes, etc. And everything builds to the fateful night he plays the Gaslight and is beaten. End of film. With the structure designed to, as you say, conjure a sense of a purgatory or a Sisyphus type scenario: a hard fought odyssey from stasis to stasis, punctuated by self-inflicted wounds (such as telling his sister to throw his belongings away because he does not give a shit, but later needing the marine license).

If I am wrong, I am wrong. I will have to study it closely on Blu-ray.

Yes, I think the confusion some people had is believing they already jumped back a week when the cat wakes him up and he writes the apology note. But the note is written the morning of the performance, while the rest of the film's events are in the week leading up to that day. The earliest moment in the timeline in reality, is Llewyn opening the door and the cat getting out, we don't see him waking up or any moment before the door opening on the 17th. The waking up scenes are all on the 24th and on the last day.

So you are saying it goes:

1. Gaslight performance and beating.
2. Llewyn writing a note the morning of the gig and the beating.
3. Llewyn opening the door and losing the cat (and most of the rest of the film) an unspecific amount of time before the above day and night.

Why are you so certain of this? Is there a visual cue within the film you are basing this on?

That's the right order presuming one accepts the note writing scene is a repeat, which it is

As mentioned above, he writes the note the morning of the Gaslight day, which is exactly a week after letting the cat out. So there is a jump back a week after writing the note

Hm. I am still not convinced the note of apology we see him write around five minutes into the film is on the morning of the Gaslight and the fight. I imagine he has exploded/rebelled against them and then quietly bowed his head and returned to their comforting fold more than once.

How do other people regard the timeline? Did anyone else see it the way Shack does?

I believe the note is identically worded and it seems obvious we're intended to see his apology is for the night heckling the old lady we later see, it'd be unnecessary deception otherwise. I suppose someone could build the argument he's apologizing for another incident we never saw, but in light of the rest of the Gaslight day repeating and the same note, the most logical interpretation to me is that we see him write the same note twice on that morning. I also didn't mention that before the jump back a week after the note, the last shot is the record being put on/starting, which seems a fitting enough jump point

When I initially saw it I was confused because the beginning and ending scenes seemed exactly the same besides the cat going out. Idk, I don't think I'll revisit it anytime soon.

I assume that the film starts at the end, basically, then without putting it up on the screen obligatorily, goes "One Week Earlier" before reaching the end (start) again.

I hate to assume there's more because I'm confused enough reading the posts.

Still, great film. Loved it.

Might work better as an extended music video with the later narrative chopped out.