Film review essay: Inside Llewyn Davis:Faltering steps in the incredible journey from adolescence to adulthood

ABSTRACTThe paper discusses the Coen brothers’ film Inside Llewyn Davisas representing in microcosm the developmental trajectory from late adolescence towards adulthood for the title character. This entails negotiating the problems of unconscious guilt, failure to mourn and an awareness of time in order to effect a movement from masochistic melancholy and hidden grandiosity to being able to relinquish omnipotent phantasies, say au revoirto internal persecutors and achieve a degree of self-possession.