10 Most Essential Coen Brothers Films

If A Serious Man is hilarious because it offers the viewer a hapless everyman who deserves none of the cruelties heaped upon him by an uncaring universe, the wildly underrated Oscar Isaac vehicle Inside Llewyn Davis is the exact opposite. Here, the trials and tribulations faced by the eponymous protagonist, a folk singer on the cusp of stardom, are all clearly deserved, and it’s his own hubris and self-centred worldview which leads to each new crisis piled atop the last.

And yet…

And yet, thanks to some incredible supporting turns from the likes of Adam Driver, Carey Mulligan, and Justin Timberlake (of all people), and Isaac’s tragic, searching pleas, we can’t help but root for this hopeless case, and his every setback ends up breaking our hearts as much as it thumps our collective funny bone. It’s a delicate balance which this dark tragi-comedy/ Definitely Not Unofficial Bob Dylan Biopic treads with grace and finesse throughout its hilarious, but bleakly beautiful runtime.