Inside Llewyn Davis

on the last 15 minutes of the movie--I think there is the glass-half-full view that he was turning things around---the movie poster about the journey, the kind encounter with Jean and the "i love you", the apology and kindness to the Columbia professor couple. Then there is the glass-half-empty view that he is on a hamster wheel of bad decisions, meanness and burned bridges that he cannot, because of himself, get off of. And guys like that don't make it. Perhaps unless you are a talent for the ages....like the Dylan insert. The narrative device that the Coen Brothers employed put their character back on the hamster wheel. With the movie's last words was he saying goodbye to folk music, or goodbye to who he had become? Most likely it's neither. Or both. Regardless, the reason that this debate of meaning is possible is because these changes (if they exist) and shifts of perspective were done with great subtlety. 99% of movies tell us how to feel. Sitting here right now 1 hour after the movie I think this might be the Coen Brothers best. Certainly their most restrained. They even got a non-caricatured performance out of John Goodman.