The Coen brothers as filmmakers are hit and miss with me.  For every one of their on-target skewers of life as we know it they produce something that I just don’t get, like Burn After Reading or O Brother, Where Art Thou?.  Their best movies are challenging, fun, dynamic and shocking.  This one, I think, is not one of their best. Their usual high standard of filmmaking is present, certainly, but I didn’t react to it well at all.

It would be accurate to say, in fact, that I dislike this movie.  The only character that I liked at all is the girl, played by Carey Mulligan.  I hated Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac). Hated him.  And that never bodes well for liking or appreciating a movie.

Llewyn is a failed folk singer who tries really hard to make good music, but does not pay nearly enough attention to the rest of his life.  He’s lazy, makes poor decisions and doesn’t know how to take care of a cat.  Time and again he gets himself into trouble because he is just living from moment to moment.  He reminds me of myself in certain ways, and I hated that about the movie, too.

I didn’t find much of anything redeeming about Llewyn Davis.  Readers may argue that characters don’t need to be noble, or even likable and they would be correct. But if I am going to spend 104 minutes of my life watching somebody else’s, then I would prefer to appreciate something about the guy.  I didn’t like his songs, I didn’t like the way he treated the girl, or his friends, and I hated the way he couldn’t properly take care of a cat.  He lost me forever when he left the cat in the car, although I see that he didn’t have much of an alternative.

Films are intellectual property, of course, to be evaluated and appreciated as art (while movies are often defined as commerce, without such pretense) but viewer reaction to both is often emotional rather than intellectual.  I’m sure it drives serious filmmakers like the Coen brothers up the wall when someone reacts emotionally to a story when they are trying to make a point about life or society, but that is exactly what has happened here.  I so disliked this movie that I cannot possibly recommend it to anyone for any reason, even if it is well made.  ☆ 1/2.  13 February 2014.