Boy Movies #12

The Oscar Isaac issue, feat. Claire Cao

If you can even believe it, you’re reading the first issue of Boy Movies of 2023. After an unprecedented two-week break, this publication is finally returning to its regular posting schedule. More great news: I recently had the pleasure of being a guest on Oscar’s Podcaast, Leah Carlson-Downie’s excellent podcast which analyzes Oscar Isaac’s filmography. I had a blast diving into his performance in iconic subject of Boy Movies past, Drive, with Leah, and you can listen to my episode now. In honor of its release, today’s issue focuses on the boy movie that made Oscar a star: Inside Llewyn Davis. Consider subscribing and telling a friend so we can all get the new year off to a happy start.

It’s Golden Globes day — lol! A Tuesday! That is so funny. I always love a reminder of how short our collective memory is. In any case, I am rooting for Austin Butler in all categories.

The Golden Globes are sort of important to the lore of an Oscar Isaac fan in the sense that the singular Globe he won in 2015 for Show Me a Hero, an HBO limited series that I fell asleep trying to watch on two separate occasions (brag!), is still the only major award he’s ever received. A couple of years before that, Isaac got his first Golden Globe nomination for Joel and Ethan Coen’s evocative folk music fable Inside Llewyn Davis, which he lost to Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street, a movie Leo famously looked hot in — but not hotter than Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis. Few people in the history of recorded media have looked hotter than Oscar Isaac looks in Inside Llewyn Davis. It remains the best performance he’s ever given, and one of the best film performances of the 2010s, period.

Inside Llewyn Davis turns ten this year, which is something I can’t think about without wanting to puke and die. In the same vein as Drive, the movie that turned me into an Oscar devotee, it’s another film that made a deep impression on me at an important time in my life. It evokes the specific feeling that comes out of the desolation that post-holiday cold weather brings: the wide shots of snowy streets, the dank color palette of greens and blues and grays, the droll performances, the deft balance of comedy and bleakness, the way Isaac effortlessly carries the whole thing on his shoulders. Every time January, always such a sleepy, listless month, rolls around, I find myself wanting to revisit it. As Nicole said when I told her I’d be covering it, “Great winter movie.”

One of the cornerstones of my long, long friendship with Claire Cao, a spectacular Australian and a wonderful writer, editor, and critic, has been our love of Oscar Isaac. We’ve privately discussed Inside Llewyn Davis at length no less than eight hundred thousand times, so I was thrilled when she agreed to be this week’s guest. I think it was nice of her despite the fact that I once made her read a college essay I wrote about this film, which is one of the most evil and depraved things you can do to a friend. I had since lost the essay and was happy to leave it lost, but Claire recovered it from the depths of her inbox a few minutes into our Zoom chat. If you so desire to read it, you can Venmo me $50.

Below is mine and Claire’s discussion about why Inside Llewyn Davis toes the line between boy movie and girl movie, why it’s rarely read as a story about grief, and the impenetrable hotness of Oscar Isaac. We also crack a peculiar conspiracy wide open at the end, ushering in the Boy Movies true crime era.

You’re like King Midas’s idiot brother

Allison
I took a class in college called “American Auteurs” that centered on the films of the Coen brothers, Wes Anderson, and Alexander Payne. I took it the semester after I took a Scorsese-Tarantino class. They were essentially the same class, but I somehow got away with taking both.

Claire
Oh my god, your film bro education. That’s the origin of Boy Movies.

Allison
I know. At one point, I had to write a paper analyzing a scene from a Coen brothers movie, and I picked the scene from Inside Llewyn Davis where John Goodman overdoses in the bathroom at the rest stop. And my analysis is just that Llewyn is… [skimming the essay] He's lonely. Okay.

Claire
I also think you were saying that John Goodman is a mirror of Llewyn, or someone he might become. That whole passage in the film is so strange. It’s really disturbing. John Goodman is the older version, the potential future for Llewyn, but even the cat and Garrett Hedlund’s character — they’re also him.

Allison
When Cassidy did the Drive issue, she talked about a college essay that she wrote, too. That's the theme now. If you've ever written a college essay about a boy movie, you're welcome as a guest on this newsletter.

So, I want to start with a topic I discussed on Oscar’s Podcaast that I’d like to hear your thoughts on: Is Oscar Isaac a boy actor or a girl actor?

Claire
It's a cusp situation, I feel. I was thinking about this — rewatching the film after so many years, I really used to sympathize with Llewyn. Now, you totally recognize that type of character, right? The art bro, the resentment that he has. But at the same time, he’s so alluring and sympathetic. Have you seen that TikTok that's like, “When you ask guys their type, they're like, blondes, brunettes, or whatever. But girls are like, ‘He's masculine, but has soft eyes’”? That’s literally Oscar. 

Allison
Yes, there’s something feminine about him.

Claire
His doe eyes. I think that’s doing a lot of work for girl actor classification.

Allison
He’s got his soft voice and his nice hair. He’s a short king.

Claire
He’s got a fat ass.

Allison
His ass that was too fat to fit inside the Millennium Falcon.

Claire
He knows that he’s sexy. He leans too much into it to be a boy actor.

Allison
But he also only does boy movies, so you’re right that he’s cuspy.

Claire
His taste is definitely very boy. Even in Star Wars, he’s not playing a straight male fantasy — there are soft waves in his hair. But then he does stuff like Card Counter… he’s truly never done a girl movie. Even when he does do a kind of corny movie, it’s always, like, an adult domestic drama about marriage.

Allison
Right, he can’t do Magic Mike XXL. He always has to do the worst thing you've ever seen.

Claire
He can’t be iconic in a girl movie. I would think that Oscar has the potential to be in a really good girl movie, but I'm afraid that he just doesn't have that sense.

Allison
I think that’s fair, he's a girl actor who only does boy movies. Speaking of, when I rewatched Llewyn Davis this time, I kept thinking about how it was Oscar’s breakout and remembering how we all thought at the time it was released that he was going to do stuff like this forever. But he never did. It makes me wonder if the Coen brothers somehow understood him in a way that no other directors have.

Claire
He hasn’t been in anything else where he’s fully inhabited the role. It was just a perfect role for him because he has that passion for music. It’s very collaborative, and it’s a very musical film. I think probably because this was his first lead role, he was really invested. It’s so difficult because everyone recognizes that he's one of the best actors of his generation. There was a tweet that said Oscar feels like an actor in the wrong time period, and I do feel like he could have been Al Pacino, maybe. He hasn't really done anything else that has hit the way this does. We still think this is his best role because no one else could’ve done it, while in some of his other films I can maybe see other actors playing those characters. Like, Llewyn Davis has his own Wikipedia page. That's how iconic the character is.

Allison
When Oscar entered the world stage, he was like, “I can do it all. I can act, I can sing, I can play guitar, I can lead a movie…”

Claire
“I can play any ethnicity.” He’s playing Italian here once again.

Allison
He’s doing Italianface. Whenever I hear the “My mother was Italian” line, I’m always like, “We won!”

Claire
“Representation!” 

Allison
This movie also has such staying power. It’s not dated. “If it was never new and it never gets old” feels like a description of the film itself.

Claire
That’s why I’m so surprised it came out ten years ago. It’s a period film, but the way it’s shot, the humor, it feels very timeless.

Allison
The cast, too. Oscar and Adam Driver were a few years out from Star Wars.

I was scrolling through the Letterboxd reviews and boys are truly on there writing essays about this movie to no one, like, for free. They're like, “And he? Is the cat.” And I'm like, “Thanks, Nick. You did it, you watched a movie.” What do you think makes it a boy movie?

Claire
I didn't think of it as a boy movie because it was such a huge Tumblr moment, but I think it is coming from a very dude perspective. Like, “dude [critical],” because obviously they're seeing him as a tragic character. All the women in this movie are kind of shrewish. I think they're well written, but I remember being younger and thinking, “Why don't they understand him? They don’t understand his art.” I get that he’s someone who doesn't want to deal with his grief or deal with the fact that his career is difficult. He projects so much bitterness onto people who are helping him, like Jean and his sister — calling Jean careerist while he's on this hike to Chicago because he wants recognition and validation as a musician. It’s still really relatable, but in a different way. In a sad way, now.

Allison
Not to be a man about it, but I do feel like he is right at certain points, and I still kind of side with him. But also, we both saw this movie when it came out in 2013, we’ve aged with it, and now we can look at it as adults and say, “He probably didn’t have to sabotage his life at every turn.”

Claire
We still love him because he's so human and he’s dealing with these emotions every artist feels. You project those feelings on people around you all the time. It's really hard to not get your own way. A lot of stuff isn't in his control. Sometimes people get left behind, and your work isn’t inspiring, and you have to give up.

Allison
Mikey dying wasn’t in his control. That's what resonates with me, obviously, the older I get. Just grieving someone and having trouble getting over it and having trouble wrapping your mind around how you feel about it. The ways that can hinder you in life.

Claire
I think one of the most moving parts of the film is him being so protective about his grief. You get the sense that he needed Mikey to function in this group.

Allison
He needed Mikey to function in the world. It’s such a Coen brothers movie in that it really just drops you into this one chaotic period of this man’s life, and it’s careful not to give away everything that happened to him before, but you get the sense that he wasn't always like this. He had someone who balanced him out. They weren't successful, but they were doing their thing.

Claire
Something else I didn't get at first is that maybe at some point, when Mikey was alive and they were younger, all these people were in the same boat. It’s that feeling of things changing and having to deal with the fact that your friends are growing up and you’re still in the same place.

Allison
That’s the thing with Jim and Jean too. Llewyn has that line where he goes, “To be clear, you wouldn't want the baby, right?” And she's like, “No, I do want it if it’s Jim’s, you asshole.” She wants to grow up, but he’s still falling behind.

Claire
Even Jim, someone he doesn't respect at all, is doing better than him. And Jim’s nice! He got him a job!

Allison
Llewyn still has these people in his life who clearly care about him. He has the Gorfeins who let him stay whenever he wants, and he has Jim and Jean who get him jobs, and he has his sister. It’s just that he has so much trouble connecting with them.

Claire
Well, that’s what F. Murray Abraham says. He doesn’t connect with people.

Allison
I love that scene so much, because when I watch it, I think about how he's giving everything. He’s been down this harrowing road to get to that exact moment auditioning for Bud Grossman, and he sings this song about Queen Jane dying in childbirth after finding out that he has a kid he didn’t know about. The choices Oscar makes in that scene, the way he keeps his eyes half-open and you can see the exhaustion on his face, how beaten down Llewyn is. We know what we know about how long it took him to get there. We know why he’s exhausted. We know why the song is hitting, and then Bud Grossman’s like, “I don’t see any money in this.”

Claire
It’s so cold. I also love that scene — whenever he plays music, actually, because he is really vulnerable. He’s so tired, but the more he sings, the more emotional he gets. That’s maybe another guy thing, his reluctance to be vulnerable. He's always making a bitchy comment or wanting to undercut the moment. But whenever he’s playing you can tell it’s something he genuinely loves, which is why I’m like, yeah, he was right to be a bitch to the Gorfeins. They don’t appreciate the music. They don’t love it the way he loves it. He resents the Gorfeins but he needs their charity.

Do you think it’s a boy movie because there’s sympathy for his behavior?

Allison
I think so. I initially thought of it as a girl movie too, but men really love this movie. There’s something there.

Claire
Men are maybe romanticizing him, the tragedy of the starving artist's struggle.

Allison
Men love to point out the cat metaphor. Men love talking about how it’s a Greek myth. Men love to be analytical about the Coen brothers. 

Claire
There’s a playfulness too — Llewyn is the cat, blah, blah, blah, but it’s also a bit of a joke. The Coen brothers’ whole thing is being very allegorical, their movies do feel like fables, but the need to pick everything apart is so boy. For me, this movie is so tied to the emotional journey.

Allison
The Coen brothers don’t even like talking about the emotional elements. Joel said that they don’t think the cat means anything and the only reason they added it is because the movie needed a story, which is such a boy director response. It’s like Martin McDonagh saying he doesn’t know why Brendan Gleeson cut his fingers off in Banshees of Inisherin, he just thought it’d be funny.

Claire
I get that as a creator it’s annoying to explain your work, but everything has to be intentional. And Llewyn totally is the cat in terms of everyone taking care of him.

Allison
The way he lashes out is like when a cat defensively scratches you. What’s hard is that the Coen brothers are boy movie directors. People talk about Llewyn Davis as a spiritual child to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and they’re similar in that they’re both about guys going on long Odyssey-like journeys. They’re both about men trying to make it in the music business. There are truly, like, four women in that entire movie. O Brother is such a boy movie that to call it Llewyn Davis’ predecessor might be enough to make Llewyn a boy movie. Even something like Fargo where the lead character is a woman, it’s still a quippy comedy about crime, which is very boy.

Claire
She feels like a subversion as well.

Allison
She’s not your normal woman.

Claire
She’s not hot.

Allison
You don’t want to fuck her, but she's gonna be in this movie, and you might feel a feeling for her. I think Llewyn Davis is probably the closest thing they’ve ever made to a girl movie, but ultimately it’s for boys.

Claire
What do you think gives it girl movie elements?

Allison
Honestly, it’s Oscar. He’s so much of the reason that this movie spoke to us when we were teens. It’s Oscar doing that pathetic loser tweet for an hour and forty-five minutes. He’s so miserable, but he's also hot and talented. They did all that live singing, and his voice is so lovely and clear. He iconically has a belly in this, which he never has anymore.

vi @jwdscore

any guy can be a babygirl but it takes a man to be a pathetic loser without a single trace of happiness in life

Claire
And he has a cat with him all the time. Even though he's meant to be this depressed homeless person dealing with all these serious issues, there’s a reason that most of the images that were widely shared from this film are of him on a couch smoking a cigarette while staring artfully out the window.

Allison
I know exactly what picture you’re talking about — his beard is so well groomed. I’m like, aren’t you homeless?

Claire
His hair is always perfect. He simply doesn't look like he smells.

Allison
Oscar’s performance is so incredible that it transcends any doubt that you might have, but at certain points I almost don't believe it. He’s insanely sexy, but he sells it because he acts like such a dick. There's something so downtrodden about him that makes it work even though Oscar has never looked better.

There’s a warmth about Llewyn, too. It comes through in a scene like the one with Jean at the end. He’s so honest — I mean, I know this line has become a meme, but it hits me every time when he says, “I’m so fucking tired.” 

Claire
Even though it’s quite a bleak film, there is so much love and warmth in it. This community still cares about each other, even if they are moving on.

Allison
There’s the emotional element of it, and the musical element… it can truly go both ways. I wouldn’t classify this as a musical, which is a genre for girls, even though the music is so important to the structure and the story and the characters. But people who don’t like musicals love to call this their favorite musical.

Claire
I also think because it’s about Greenwich Village and folk music, which can be a very masculine genre. It’s American life mythologized by men, especially in New York, and the legend-making of that period. I can see why they love the movie, although folk music is actually quite twee and sweet.

Allison
Yeah, and the movie opens with him singing “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me,” which is this morbid but very pleasant-sounding song.

I feel like we need to mention that the reading of Llewyn as a character online is so different from a normal moviegoing man’s reading of Llewyn as a character. Among certain people online, he is a confirmed bisexual. He’s mourning his boyfriend, Mikey. His boyfriend Marcus Mumford. 

Claire
I mean, we have discussed how we don't understand boy best friends. I don’t understand the relationship. I guess there’s just a little disconnect here. It’s not our culture, so we don’t get it. Women online have always been more focused on Llewyn’s grief. That’s something that men don’t seem to focus on as much.

Allison
I rarely see it read as a movie about grief.

Claire
Another thing about how women engage with it is how we find his sadness attractive. He’s a poor little meow meow. I can fix him, I want to step on him. 

Allison
Because he’s just so pathetic! His shoes are wet! We see the way he treats Jean and we’re like, “It’d be different if it were me.” By the way, him screaming at the woman folk singer at the end because he found out that Jean slept with Pappi to get him a spot playing the Gaslight is something I didn’t pick up on until a few years ago. It’s such a good moment, because it happens just before the story wraps back around. He’s Sisyphus, just doing it over and over and over.

Claire
And the ending is the reveal of Bob Dylan. That anxiety about being left behind, being upstaged by Bob Dylan, by a genius, is a male ego concern.

Allison
He’s not going to make it because Bob Dylan is going to make it. Being afraid you won’t be the best at what you do is a universal fear, but the specificity of Bob Dylan — not only are you getting upstaged, but you're getting upstaged by an icon. Men can't even fail normally, they need to fail spectacularly.

Claire
They need that big punch. And Llewyn is already failing.

Allison
The final performance scene where he sings “Fare Thee Well” — it’s such a powerhouse moment. The breath is stolen from me every time I watch it, and it’s the scene that really makes his lack of an Oscar nom for this movie feel most egregious. The anguished expression on his face, the rawness in his voice.

Claire
I love that it’s the only way Llewyn can express his feelings as well.

Allison
He can talk about Mikey when he’s singing. And when he plays “The Shoals of Herring” for his dad, this song that his dad loved when Llewyn was a kid, but it doesn’t work. He can never find the right song to sing to the right person at the right time. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s what makes him relatable to people who love this film.

By the way, I bought the soundtrack on iTunes back in the day because there are only three tracks up on Spotify and that didn’t work for me. There are two versions of “Fare Thee Well” on the soundtrack, one of which is the one Oscar and Marcus Mumford did together. But there’s also a solo version that’s just Oscar singing, and would you believe that in Oscar’s solo version the lyrics are changed to make it so that he’s singing about a woman?

Claire
That’s not the way it is in the movie, right?

Allison
No! Is this a conspiracy? Hold on, I’ll play it for you.

[At this point, I played the second verse of Oscar Isaac’s solo version of “Fare Thee Well (Dink’s Song)” for Claire, in which he sings, “The woman I love is long and tall, she moves her body like a cannonball.” True heads will note that this is different from the version sung throughout the film, which instead contains the lyric, “I had a man, he was long and tall, he moved his body like a cannonball.”]

Claire
Oh my god! Why is she tall? Why would a woman move her body like a cannonball?

Allison
I have never seen a woman resemble a cannonball.

Claire
That’s so shocking. The censorship! What are they so afraid of? Maybe this is a conspiracy.

Allison
We’re breaking it wide open.

• If anyone has any answers regarding the above situation, the comments section is open.

• Oscar Isaac on how his "ethnic hips" were too wide for the Millennium Falcon, which Claire and I touched on.

• Anyone else remember that amazing Inside Llewyn Davis concert they aired on Showtime way back when? I still listen to that live album all the time. Elvis Costello and Joan Baez doing “Which Side Are You On?” … I love being 65 years old.