If you thought Llewyn Davis was a bad person and lazy, please explain.

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Ha I came to that conclusion when lewyln himself admitted it clearly to his nephew! "Your uncle is a bad man"!

I agree. Before I saw the movie, I read a lot of these comments about him being an unlikable jerk basically...and perhaps it does appear that way until near the end of the film, then it loops again and from that point on I thought he was the nice guy with some rough edges(having a bad week..we all do). People chastised him about the abortion thing and how he treated Jean, but he loved her. She berated him about being pregnant when she didn't even know if it was his..yet he went out of his way to help her and pay for it..even turning down a royalty deal. The previous girl never had an abortion as it turned out. His friends all slept with Jean too and the club owner made women have sex with him to get on his stage. By comparison Llewen is the nice guy. He visits his dad and plays for him and you can see it pleases the old man. He deserved to get punched in the alley though..and perhaps it was a little wake up call. I liked him. I also like that he was willing to forgo the material world in dedication to his music and live life on his terms as best he could. He was a fighter. It reminds me of the saying "the things you own, end up owning you". Llewen is a free man. For better or worse.

I didn't hate Llewyn, although I can't say I necessarily liked him much either. My biggest issue with him was his disdain for anyone who lived a different kind of life than his. I'm a creative person and pretty much a free spirit myself, but I don't judge people who live differently or want different things than I do. Most of my friends are married, with kids and suburban houses and all that jazz; it's not something I want for myself, but if it makes them happy, who am I to judge? His judgment of his sister's "ordinary" life, and of Jean wanting to get married and have kids, was pretty shtty IMO. Although to be honest, I didn't care for Jean any more than I did Llewyn; in fact, I may have liked her less. She acted as if it was all his fault that she got knocked up, and that's just ridiculous. He didn't rape her; they had sex. Why did she have sex with him in the first place if she thinks he's the worst person on earth? (Not to mention if she loves Jim as she claims to.) The sex had to be pretty recent seeing as how she was obviously very early along in her pregnancy. She was no better than he was.

The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.

Well, I wouldn't say Llewyn was a "bad" person, but he wasn't exactly a "bad" one either. More like most of us, I suspect: a basically decent person that can be a real dick at times (whether justified or not). Lazy? No. He wasn't lazy, he actually worked quite hard to get gigs and make some money at doing what he wanted to do.

He did not deserve Jean's harsh critique (and she's one to talk anyway--basically blaming him because she cheated) although she does have a point in a way about him turning everything he touches to *beep* This indeed IS the case at times with Llewyn... He often creates his own problems due to his own carelessness (cat would not have escaped if he had been careful shutting the door, opened the window, etc. and telling his sister to throw away the box). Such simple things. But then we wouldn't have the story (such as it is) without things going wrong. But leaving the cat (obviously his spirit animal) in the car like that... no to me you just don't treat animals that way... you don't abandon them when the going gets tough.

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I'm pretty sure that Llewyn's arc is tragic here.

I'm just not sure WHY. What could Llewyn have done or not done? Why is he set upon on a course to obscure disappointment instead of fulfillment?

Maybe its the old idea of selling out or sticking to "truth". We see that Llewyn despises the idea of being "careerist" and thinks of himself as a very ground-centered artist. He is critical of "lesser" musical writing, does not perform at parties, and feels that his art alone should clear his path of woe. Meanwhile, we see that others who have made a decision to compromise have moved forward with their own lives, like Jim, Jean, and the young cadet.

Llewyn is definitely not lazy. He engages in the ultimate effort, after all, making the strange and grueling spirit journey to the Gate of Horn (through which we receive the truth of dreams) and there performs beautifully. But he also is told true things at that place...and still will not compromise. I think that was the real turning point. That's where he could not accept that the only path within the music business he could still take would be a path where he would have to move past the pain of his loss and share his future with others (taking on a new partner). I think he actually realizes the choice as he's making it, and he knows he is damned then. On the way home, he in fact sees that sometimes fate will sometimes hurl a screeching tragedy at you, leaving you to limp lamely on into the cold dark wood of the future...and that's just how things are.

...and so, on the morning following his beating, he'll take the meager basket money from the club performance, and get his licensing reissued. He'll ship out, blindly leaving the proverbial shore of heaven BEHIND him in doing so, never having met the man who will make Greenwich Village famous despite sharing a stage with him.

I went into the film having read the reviews and thinking I wouldn't like Llewyn, but I came out thinking exactly like you.

The thing is, I have a few musician friends that are exactly like him, who wouldn't mind getting recognition (and money!) for their art but who don't see the point of selling out since it wouldn't be art anymore. And yes, if they want to go on with it they ask a lot of others, and go through phases of depression, and tend to despise bad music and resent those who *are* not as good but make it anyway. They're still people with talent and often a personal vision and a lot to give. Actually I got out of this reminding myself to check that one or two of these friends know there are couches (metaphorical or otherwise) they could crash on.

I also thought the trip to Chicago showed remarkable courage, physical and mental. Even for the trip in itself! And especially since he appears to be already very disillusioned and doesn't seem to have many hopes about his chances. It feels like a last stand, but he gives it all he can (in his Llewyn way, which means choosing a very unglamorous, if poignant and masterfully interpreted song).

Yes, Llewyn isn't nice (and he's got reasons not to be that week) but he's even more than decent.
So he sleeps around and another girlfriend of his had an unwanted pregnancy before Jean. That still doesn't make it an habit. And lots of people from the pre-BCP era found themselves in that situation.
As for the abortion, he's not pushing for it nor against it, acknowledges Jean's need to do it, pays for it, finds the doctor, gets insulted a lot in the process and never really strikes back. I find it rather admirable.

He sleeps on couches? Well, it seems that before he slept in ships, and that must not have been a very lazy life. And yet he's ready to go back to it at one point. Inbetween, as you say, he wasn't lazy, just very much devoted to his music.

He's absolutely horrible during this evening at the Gorfeins but it feels like someone someone being pushed (unwillingly, not unkindly) down to his limits and breaking down, and that the Gorfeins are ready to take him back afterwards hints that they know other sides of him.


Oh, and Oscar Isaac himself shares your opinion. The bonus interview in the (French) DVD has him describing Llewyn as "a happy, funny, charming, gregarious warm guy, but - not this week."