A Most Violent Year

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR (J.C. Chandor, 2014)

While teaching his salespeople how to secure contracts for his heating oil company Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) says, “You will never do anything as hard as staring someone straight in the eye and telling the truth.” In A MOST VIOLENT YEAR, set in 1981 New York City, Abel wants to be an honest man in a dirty business in which competitors steal from and kill one another, but his shortcoming is failing to be honest with himself about how his business is able to survive. Still, that willful blindness allows him to take the necessary steps to get by each day. Thus he can believe he is a good man facing persecution for the wickedness of others.

Abel worked as a driver for the Standard Heating Oil Company before he and his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) bought it from her father, who is widely recognized as a Brooklyn gangster. Over twenty years Abel has grown the business and attracted unwanted attention because of such success. District Attorney Lawrence (David Oyelowo) has been investigating the company for two years and is preparing to file a fourteen-count indictment. Abel’s drivers are being attacked, and thousands of dollars of fuel is being stolen.

These problems are also making it difficult for Abel to line up an investor to help with purchasing a piece of property that will give him a major strategic advantage. With a substantial nonrefundable portion already paid, Abel is desperate to scrounge up another $1.5 million but can’t obtain it from legitimate sources. He doesn’t want to be indebted to crooked men because he envisions himself as an upstanding businessman, but with time running out and pressure mounting, he may have no other choice.

Writer-director J.C. Chandor is interested in studying how power, be it political or financial, is aligned out of sight and what the consequences of this process are for those not benefiting from it. Cinematographer Bradford Young drapes A MOST VIOLENT YEAR in low light so that the action literally takes place in and among the shadows. Abel is comfortable there, even when his back is against the wall, because the shroud is meant to protect people like him. For his drivers threatened by an unknown enemy, even going into hiding is not a safe place. They are the little guys, and they will always be the first to pay because of their low position on the hierarchy.

Hard work and good luck may factor into Abel’s achievements, but determination and effort are not the only traits responsible. Isaac does outstanding work as a compromised man who has the luxury of not knowing how much of his prosperity comes from the grease and grime he hasn’t been required to touch. He shows the depth of Abel’s conviction and righteousness while dwelling in the darkness unaware of his slow descent. Chastain’s fierce performance paints Anna as a kingmaker of sorts. Anna knows her role and carries it out with ruthless efficiency without drawing notice. Through her Chastain manifests a different kind of toughness, the type that isn’t necessarily front and center but quietly acquires dominance through proximity and savvy.

Although the drama is fraught with tension, Chandor finds room in A MOST VIOLENT YEAR for two terrific chase scenes. Both also make tangible the anxiety, terror, and anger pumping through the narrative and remove standards of fair play. To Chandor the nature of business and politics isn’t Darwinian so much as it is a guided by those setting the rules in their favor.

Grade: A-

Inside Llewyn Davis

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 2013)

When Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham) tells Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) that he doesn’t connect with people, the manager of influential Chicago folk music club Gate of Horn is evaluating him as a performer.  The assessment could just as well apply to the singer’s interpersonal relationships, though. Llewyn tends to approach the world as if it owes him for gracing everyone with his presence and talent.  He’s perpetually in need of a couch to crash on, and he doesn’t think twice about asking his friend Jim (Justin Timberlake) to lend him money to terminate another pregnancy he may be responsible for.  Never mind that the unnamed woman wanting an abortion is Jim’s girlfriend Jean (Carey Mulligan).

Despite his sour disposition and frequent impositions,  Llewyn continues to be treated generously, which suggests people believe he deserves their help even if he takes it for granted and risks alienating his friends and acquaintances in the Greenwich Village folk scene.  Perhaps it means that while he behaves like a jerk now, he didn’t always, or not to this degree.  His current career struggles and the way his musical partnership was severed explain why he’s mired in a funk and why people may be willing to cut him some slack.  Set during a blustery February 1961, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS externalizes Llewyn’s depression.  Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel swabs the singer’s environment in gray and often suggests occupying a dark space for enduring Job-like trials.  

Co-writers and directors Joel and Ethan Coen merge O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? and A SERIOUS MAN into INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS’ bleak but comic musical journey with an impeccable soundtrack.  Structured like a song in the round, Llewyn’s odyssey takes a circular shape with which he’s out of sync.  He doesn’t come in at the proper place and stumbles to find the appropriate exit point to break the cycle and rejoin where he should.  Although he can anticipate what’s coming, Llewyn is doomed to remain in the loop at the wrong measure.

Isaac isn’t pressed to mold Llewyn into someone appealing to have around, yet his apparent neediness attracts empathy despite his surly and defeated bearing.  Misery loves company, and he’s the kind of person who can be comforting to have around when everyone is having a rough time of it.  If and when others in Llewyn’s circle break through, something that is likely closer than the characters suspect, he’s also one they’ll leave behind because his unfulfilled high self-regard and standards will make him intolerable to be near.  Llewyn isn’t chasing professional success as much as he’s trying to escape himself, and he’d rather decry what he perceives as selling out than to compromise the integrity of his art.

The cool emotional tone of INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS benefits from the humor the supporting cast generates.  Adam Driver’s gut-busting backing vocals to novelty song “Please Mr. Kennedy” represent everything Llewyn resists.  John Goodman’s scornful jazz man, who derides the inferiority of a suicidal man’s leaping spot, indicates what Llewyn’s future could be if he doesn’t change course.  Mulligan’s brittleness and seething anger toward Llewyn produce a funny inversion of the sweet harmonizer she is on stage with her boyfriend.  Timberlake doesn’t play his moments for laughs but does well displaying the decency and heart that Llewyn resists in himself.

Although the protagonist appears unable to tap any reserves of affection, the Coens present his story as a common, tragic tale with a lot of compassion.  For filmmakers often accused (and wrongly so) of being snide, this prickly comedy-drama demonstrates that there’s more below than surface to discover if one’s willing to take a closer look.

Grade: A