Inside Llewyn Davis

He catches our attention, our feelings are sensitive and then gone. We feel empty and empathise with his pain. We learn that this is Llewyn Davis.

The camera shots are gentle; soft transitions between cuts. They're simple and its simplicity is drawing us in. Like Woody Allen, the Coen's use neat angles with little to distract us in each scene but the star - they are well balanced - but far removed from Allen in terms of colour and his idiosyncratic style, perhaps a closer resemblance to Hitchcock through the Coen's attempt at realism in each scene.

The cat is given its own entrance, like a person. Maybe we ought to think of the cat as a character in this picture? Maybe he is his only friend? But no, we later figure out this cat is not a friend, but a responsibility - his only responsibility and he cannot manage. He struggles and walks the tightrope of failure, managing somehow to make it to the other side.

Oscar Isaac. I remember his name, finally.

For as long as we watch this film, we don't step outside his head, his world of music and we feel we are in the mind of a musician - nothing matters but the song. It's exciting and strange to us, being in this unknown world. Films must create a world specific to the character and familiar to them only; that's what draws us into films, separates the good from the bad. Keep the dialogue specific, contextual, relevant only to the world of the protagonist. Keep the story unique, only somewhat true to the real world.