The Coen Brothers are back in theaters with their newest offering, Inside Llweyn Davis, which is the story of a folk singer in Greenwich Village in 1961. Llweyn Davis is a broke musician who plays gigs and couch surfs from one place to another. Llweyn is searching for something, something elusive and just out of reach. He is stuck in a cycle that doesn’t seem to end in which he may or may not find a sense of satisfaction. His is a restless journey to a undetermined place, or maybe he’s just searching for something hiding inside him.
Unlike many of the films in the Coen Brother’s cannon, Inside Llweyn Davis is void of the extreme violence that often marks their work. Rather this film is a story about relational fissures and the mercy of community, mercy even for one who is often unkind to the community which keeps him from falling into the void.
Llweyn Davis is often found apologizing to the people who love and care about him for his behavior and actions to him. He is a broken man who avoids his grief and turns it into frustration for the people who love and care for him. However, over and over again he experiences their mercy and grace. Those who he has lashed out at and hurt open up their arms and their homes to him offering shelter from the internal winter of his restless grief and self sabotaging ways. He is a man who is held together through the love of others, a love that overrides his lashing out.
The Coen Bros’ latest film is a story of the subtle mercies of community. Llweyn’s story is not one marked by instant redemptions and insights. Rather his are slow steady movements. His redemption comes through a brief moment of emotional intimacy towards a woman he loves, a hug and apology from a friend who he has cut with his words, and an open door and warm bed in the cold of New York. In the arms of his community of other musicians and wealthy friends, he finds rest and redemption.
Llweyn’s journey has something to say to all of us, whether one identifies with him or not. Maybe life has not become what we expected it to be. Maybe we are far from what we imagined for ourselves and feel like failures. Or maybe we’re the ones who have gotten our life to go the way we wanted, and there is someone like Llywen asking or needing the open arms of the community we could provide. The mercy and love we can find in community is what keeps us from utter destruction. It is in the subtle grace of community that we are offered the chance to grow even in small ways.