Inside Llewyn Davis

Today I saw Inside Llewyn Davis, starring Oscar Issac and Carey Mulligan.

Llewyn Davis (Issac) is a 'starving artist' musician in New York. The year is 1961; the mood is grim.

Jean (Mulligan) and Jim (Justin Timberlake) are fellow folk singers who run in the same circles as Llewyn, and Llewyn may or may not have impregnated Jean. This is only one of the apparent many reasons that she hates him.

Davis seems to have a case of perpetual bad luck, but it's terribly hard to sympathize with him because his demeanor is so unappealing. You've met those people—the ones who whine and whine and act as if they're the only person in the world that has to struggle? That's the type of sad sack that Davis encompasses.

So… light attracts light and dark attracts dark. When you fall into a tunnel of darkness and refuse to climb out of it (or lose the will to at least try), you'll only spiral further down. And Davis, who couch surfs his way though his miserable life, is one big ball of darkness.

Jean is so full of venom that we barely even notice when Mulligan's American accent slips or her character tries to do a nice thing for Llewyn. We're way past her by then, having coated us in such anger.

That leaves the brief (but shining) performances by Timberlake and John Goodman to keep things light, and for a few moments they do. Timberlake leading the best song in the film, "Please Mr. Kennedy," and Goodman a passenger on the road trip from hell. Both brilliant performances that gave great flavor to the film.

I can't pretend the Coen brothers haven't done better. This isn't in the same ballpark as No Country for Old Men or The Man Who Wasn't There, but it's not terrible either.

Just make sure you see it when you're in a bright mood or it might bring you down.

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Drive

Today I saw Drive, starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan.

A Hollywood stunt driver (Gosling) strikes up a friendship with his neighbor, Irene (Mulligan), with whom he shares an immediate chemistry, but soon learns she is married. Her husband is in prison and will be home in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, the Driver acts as a caretaker for Irene and her young son, not pretending to deny the elephant in the room.

By day the Driver works on Hollywood sets and in a nearby garage; by night he drives getaway cars but somehow manages to keep his hands clean of the crimes ... until Irene's husband comes home.

Standard (Oscar Isaac) owes a debt to some folks from his prison days. He wants to lead a crime-free life, but fears what may happen to his family if he doesn't make good on the promise. He mentions his predicament to the Driver, who agrees to help him purely to keep Irene and her son safe.

When the robbery spirals out of control (featuring an electric cameo from Mad Men's Christina Hendricks), the Driver finds himself guilty of more than driving, and in the worst danger of his life.

Ryan Gosling plays the main character with a controlled chaos that's fastly becoming his trademark. You can see by the look in his eyes he'll do anything for this woman, yet he's a man of few words. Only the Johnny Depps and Leo Dicaprios of the world could've played this part as well.

The directing is also phenomenal—a battle is acted out in shadows; flashes of light build tension after a crash and nothing is as scary as the glimpse we get of a bad guy through the bathroom blinds.

All of this is intensified by a perfect musical score. The sounds that accompany the actions add to instead of subtract from the action, and there's plenty of it.

I could've done without much of the blood and gore, but none of it was gratuitous. In fact, it was probably all the more shocking because it was completely believable.

Easily one of the best films of 2011.

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Never Let Me Go

Today I saw Never Let Me Go, starring Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield.

Kathy (Mulligan) seems to be a classic goody two-shoes. She is smart, helpful and kind to her fellow students at the refined British boarding school where she lives.

Tommy (Garfield) has anger management problems. Scenes featuring him during youth would lead many to believe he was perhaps autistic due to his outbursts. This is never confirmed, but is implied.

Kathy and Tommy form a tender friendship, which leads Tommy to buy a cassette tape for Kathy. The song she listens to repeatedly is called "Never Let Me Go."

Ruth (Keira Knightly) is the prettier, less-honorable girl at school who sleeps with Tommy to keep him from realizing his love for Kathy. Pretty straightforward love triangle, right?

Not so much.

It seems that the boarding school is merely a breeding ground for beings that are born from a laboratory for no other purpose than to harvest and donate organs. When they reach a certain age, they get their 'notice' similar to a military draft, and begin surgeries to give up as many parts of their body as possible. Their obligation is "complete" only when they die.

Kathy gets lucky and becomes a "carer," which apparently buys her a few more years. In the meantime, she cares for those not so lucky, comforting them in between surgeries and signing the releases for their bodies when they don't make it.

The film is solid; the acting superb; the scenery perfect. But something about its quiet pace doesn't quite instigate the anger that we should feel for these poor, sacrificed souls.

No matter how they were created, it is clear the students share human emotions and feelings, and therefore they should be entitled to a life longer than early adulthood. This injustice should trigger a more intense response from the audience, but falls short of doing so.

That said, it was nice to watch a movie that had an original plot, mixing character studies and science fiction into the same fold.

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