Inside Llewyn Davis sold out

In “Inside Llewyn Davis,” the Coen brothers let their natural pessimism run rampant against the backdrop of the Greenwich Village folk music scene of the early 1960s. The movie is set just before a novice Bob Dylan took that world by storm, and helped propel the niche genre to widespread public acclaim, but Mr. Dylan’s surrealistic lyricism, allegorical style, and dark humor inform this wonderfully strange and idiosyncratic movie.
The character of Llewyn Davis is loosely based on Dave Van Ronk, a onetime merchant marine who was a leading light among New York folkies before Mr. Dylan arrived on the scene. Though the film itself celebrates folk music and features characters based on well-known musicians like Tom Paxton and Jack Elliott, it’s really a nuanced and at times disturbing look at how talent and ambition collide with failure and loss.