The Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis: First Reviews from Cannes

Inside Llewyn Davis is the Coen’s forthcoming comedy-drama set against the folk scene in 1960s New York. While general audiences will have to wait until January 2014 when it hits cinemas, it screened on the weekend at Cannes Film Festival and received universal praise.

Here’s a sample of the first reviews to salivate over…

The Guardian: Cannes audiences just heard a clean, hard crack: the sound of the Coen brothers hitting one out of the park. Their new film is brilliantly written, terrifically acted, superbly designed and shot; it’s a sweet, sad, funny picture about the lost world of folk music which effortlessly immerses us in the period. (5 stars)

Variety: A boldly original, highly emotional journey… Draws on actual persons and events for inspiration, but binding themselves only to their own bountiful imaginations. The result is a movie that neatly avoids the problems endemic to most period movies — and biopics in particular — in favour of a playful, evocatively subjective reality.

Hollywood Reporter: A gorgeously made character study leavened with surrealistic dimensions both comic and dark, an unsparing look at a young man who, unlike some of his contemporaries, can’t transcend his abundant character flaws and remake himself as someone else… A strange odyssey that continually keeps you off balance as it darts and careens down assorted desolate streets and dark alleys of the human condition.