Review: Coen brothers’ latest has great acting, dialogue, but ‘Llewyn Davis’ lacks drive

Posted on January 17, 2014

“Inside Llewyn Davis,” it is a film that is very much in the art house zone, while keeping the usual trademarks of a Coen brothers project: tight direction, wonderful dialogue, on-point performances and great music.

Reviewing art-house pictures is difficult, because they often simply don’t work like mainstream movies. The normal rules don’t apply, which isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but giving potential moviegoers adequate expectations can be tricky, because solid artistic merit doesn’t necessarily make for an entertaining two hours.

So, while “Inside Llewyn Davis” is an intriguing character study with a great script and wonderful acting, overall it lacks enough forward momentum in the story to keep most moviegoers engaged for its entire length.

The film is rated R for language including some sexual references.

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