The Hudsucker Proxy

Now this is a wild film with a lot going on, definitively a holiday season watch.

One of Coens best work. Very entertaining and smart with magnificent dark humour

A smart and sometimes bizarre film who tells the story of Norville Barnes, a college graduate from a small town who is looking for a job in the big city. When he gets a job in one of the biggest companies in town Hudsucker Industries the president had just commited suicide. One of the board members comes up with the idea of putting Barnes running the company waiting to him to ruin everything with the intention of making the company so cheap that all of the board members can buy it and then they will become majority stockholders. But things will not be like all of them hope to be.
I really liked the idea of incorporated the invention of the Hula-Hoop in the story. Very funny!
Tim Robbins does a good job so has Paul Newman. Jennifer Jason Leigh was a little bit annoying for me.
Just need to see two more films from the Coen Brothers and then I've seen all of his films.

Joel and Ethan Coen have a little fun with this carefree romp through the 1950s executive suite. Tim Robbins plays Norman Barnes, a naïve yokel who trips off the bus and falls straight to the top of a major international corporation, literally taking an express elevator from the crowded basement mail room to the president’s office. His breakneck appointment is a scheme by the bigwigs, a plot to artificially deflate stock prices while solidifying their control, but Barnes’s adorably simple-minded ideas catch on with the public. He becomes an overnight media darling and the conniving corporates (led by a gravel-voiced Paul Newman) are forced to pivot to their Plan B. Meanwhile, Jennifer Jason Leigh puts on a heavy Mid-Atlantic accent, channeling Rosalind Russell in _His Girl Friday_ as a pushy, fast-talking, “one of the boys” press reporter who goes undercover to dig some dirt on the new boss.

In _The Hudsucker Proxy_, the Coens pay homage to many such golden-aged archetypes. The wide-eyed innocent who’s in way over his head. The manipulative social elites who beg for comeuppance. The big-mouthed tough girl who’s softer than she lets on. These are all familiar caricatures, more than a little worn out, but the eccentric performances of an all-star cast are good enough to pull them back from the brink. Robbins is the physical embodiment of a puppy dog: all knees and elbows, still growing into his body (and the big boys’ world) despite standing at least a head taller than the men and women around him. He’s both insightful and clueless. Leigh’s worldly damsel can’t help pulling the wool over the eyes of such a rube, then regretting it when he turns out to be deeper than the clowns she’s been running with. And Newman is everything you’d want from a foil, cheerfully spitting and growling his way through a cloud of cigar smoke to toss a dozen dirty obstacles in their way.

Light, silly and playful, this was a nice break from the dark intensity of _Fargo_ and _Barton Fink_, which bookend it in the Coens’ filmography. It’s nothing monumental or groundbreaking, a pastiche which boldly wears its inspirations on its sleeve (particularly the vast, towering architectural details, which seem to have been delivered straight from Lang’s _Metropolis_), but the characters are warm, the cast give us their best and the dialogue is a real hoot. I’ve been enjoying it for years.

I'm sure if I googled around for a minute I'd be able to find an established term that describes the style/vibe of this film, but instead I'm going to reinvent the wheel and describe it myself. It exists in a heightened version of reality. All of the ideas are familiar, and are grounded conceptually in the real world, but they're turned up to 11 in absurdist ways that are used to add humor and/or visual style. If I had to guess what the established term is, it would probably be some distant relative of fantasy or an offshoot of magical realism or the like. Regardless of what it's called, I'm a fan. I was on board with the quirky sense of humor and, with only one exception, I enjoyed the caricature-esque portrayals from the cast. That exception is Jennifer Jason Leigh's portrayal of Amy Archer. I don't think this has anything to do with the performance, which is probably great. The problem is that the accent and character are just too tied to the cliché for me to disconnect them (I blame the reporter character in one of the later seasons of BoJack Horseman). In any case, I don't know that any portrayal of this type of character will ever feel convincing to me, because I inherently associate it with over the top acting. Aside from that, my one other big critique is the film's third act, which felt rushed and also leaned a bit too much on the fantasy relative to the rest of the film. Despite those two issues, I still have no problem recommending the film, thanks primarily to Tim Robbins' fantastic central performance and the clever writing typical of the Coen brothers.

Something completely different for the Coen brothers, this is an oldschool screwball comedy originally written by Sam Raimi. It really commits to that style, everything is wonderfully overacted and the sets and score are all very exaggerated. Imagine the J Jonah Jamison scenes from the Sam Raimi Spider-man films stretched out over an entire film, mix in some German expressionism and Terry Gilliam, and you’re close to what this is. However, for as much as the Coens nail the style, I didn’t care as much for the writing. As far as ‘capitalism = bad’ movies go, this doesn’t dig all that deep. That means your enjoyment will probably depend on how much you vibe with the comedy, which is the most divisive aspect of the film. In my opinion, some of the slapstick and silliness are really good, but it can get oddly lowbrow and dumb for a Coen brothers film, it’s sometimes lacking that clever layer you can often find in their dumb comedies. Look, I’d recommend _Brazil_ over this any day, but this is still a pretty decent effort, if a little unremarkable when taking their entire filmography into account.

6/10

As will all Coen brothers films, this one calls me to see it again, as I always seem to discover new elements when watching their works for the second, third, fourth times, and beyond. A very worthwhile film – enjoy!

Coen-style comedy with moralising ends on the bone.

Got boring fast. No good characters just a few one dimensional stereotypes. The comedy was very poor. Then I found out it was Coen movie and it all made sense. I only watched it because I like Tim Robbins but in this he's got nothing to watched or watched or with. Newman looked like he didn't care.