Inside Llewyn Davis

First things first; this film is downbeat - no doubt about that. It opens with a song about a hanging and looks as if it was all shot on one long drizzly Thursday. If you're expecting a happy-go-lucky musical, you'll be disappointed. If you're in the mood for a thought-provoking, darkly funny, ultimately heart-warming bit of cinema, you'll love it as much as I did.

Llewyn Davis is a struggling folk musician couch-surfing his way around Greenwich Village in the Winter of '61. His singing partner has just thrown himself off the George Washington Bridge and Llewyn's new solo record is failing to set the world alight. There's no good reason for his failures - he's talented and he's a nice guy (when the cat owned by one of his landlords sneaks out as he's leaving their apartment, he carries it around with him all day, making sure it doesn't get lost) but he's an Everyman - one of the ninety nine in a hundred who are destined to fail. It's this one, small idea that makes the film so compelling.

Oscar Isaac, is the man that brings Llewyn to life with a subtle performance that is in turn cruel and gracious, vunerable and powerful, funny and heartbreaking. His singing voice is like sugared raspberries too. Carey Mulligan turns in an authentically sixties-sounding vocal as Llewyn's angry, 'more-than-just-good-friends' friend Jean. Justin Timberlake, on top form again, is her boyfriend Jim. John Goodman steals the show, as an opinionated business man on a bizarre road trip, and there's an almost entirely silent turn from an enigmatic Garrett Hedlund as his driver.

Happily, the cover of old American folk song Fare Thee Well that was used on the trailer, also features in the film, beautifully flavouring an early sequence in which Llewyn's day gets off to a bad start. The music really is a treat and, more often than not, the tracks are played out in full, taking centre stage as they should. Oscar Isaac will break your heart with his rendition of The Death of Queen Jane during an audition with a bar owner in Chicago. Keep an ear out for a gloriously Scottish, jumper-clad quartet performing at the Gaslight Cafe too.

Maybe it's an Optimist thing - but I actually came away from Inside Llewyn Davis feeling uplifted. It was the ending that did it. No explosions, no unanswered questions, just a simple, satisfying conclusion that's open to interpretation. If you're in the wrong frame of mind, it will grind what's left of your happiness into dust. If you're in the right frame of mind, you'll be left with a strange sense of reassurance, and ultimately, hope. The most overriding feeling though is the one that's telling you to buy the soundtrack as soon as you've left the cinema - which I gladly did.