The Hudsucker Proxy
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Movie Reviews of The Hudsucker Proxy
Movie Review: The Greatest Comedy Ever!
Summary: 5 Stars
I think I have figured out why the quality of this film is so heavily disputed: It is a comedy without jokes. Everything onscreen, from the characters to the sets to--especially to--the dialogue is so incredibly amusing that many folks cannot seem to comprehend what the film is doing. I'll enlighten those who have yet to enjoy the majesty of this film: It isn't cracking mundane, vulgar, stereotypical gags like every other film, it is reinventing humor, redesignating what is funny, what it takes to make the audience laugh. You can't watch five minutes of this film and find it humorous, because everything about it is an experiment in new and interesting ways to amuse a crowd; obviously they can't please everyone, but for me the film has become my all time favorite comedy.Humor, as defined by the Coens, is more obscure than you or your Webster's considers it. For them, humor is an all encompassing showcase that cannot be taken apart into simple categories of performance, and script, and intelligence--and yet all three of these succeed well beyond most other films, as the Coen brothers are perhaps the most inventive in the industry today. Because the funny aspect of the Hudsucker Proxy lies in a perfect amalgamation of every element of the film, it disappoints those people who are looking for "one moment in time; so they can say right here, right now; this is it." With the Coens, this is impossible, since it is always about the sum of the parts rather than the integrity of a single aspect at a single moment.
But even beyond the humor of this film, I cannot help but praise it incessantly. Visually, as usual, it sets a stunning image, achieving a style that is entertaining in itself. The dialogue, whether you consider it funny or not, can be deemed nothing but intelligent and witty. The performances are dead-on and borderline eccentric/absurd, for what the Coen brothers are famous. The direction is always superb--and proof positive that even the direction plays a major role in the "jokes" of the Hudsucker Proxy, watch the camera during the Lounge Singers performance; the single greatest shot in the film has no dialogue and not even one of the main characters, and yet it punctuates the intended frivolity of the entire picture.
Some have commented that the viewer has little affection for the characters. To everyone their own, but MY own is that I TOO heartily fall in love with these characters. Tim Robbins is the clumsy everyman that any humbled human will see in himself; Jennifer Jason Leigh is our ambition, and tragic despite the darker side of her story. I'd go even so far as to say I like Paul Newman's character, whom despite the evil way in which he is portrayed, models our lowest and greediest selves. And so, while many contest the characters to be too inconsequential, I say they are the driving force, relating the viewer to himself in new and impossible ways amidst a superbly entertaining script. Again, some call the script pointless, but truth be told, I find this plot to be more well developed than most of the Coen brothers' other works.
And through all of these traits, Hudsucker takes the cake as my favorite comedy of all time. There is just something incredibly inventive, humorous, and intelligent in every single shot, every single word, every single expression and mannerism that the talented cast, crew, and filmmakers have put on the screen. There is a gift in everything to be witnessed, as every individual part is perfect--and perfectly implemented, since the final product far exceeds the sum of its parts. In short, from the minutest detail to the overall scheme, everything about this film pleases in new and unexpected ways that intend to spoof--and appear to--but really reinvent what it means to make a comedy. Take care to pay close attention to what this film offers, as I hope others take note and observe the magic it possesses; The Future is Now!
Movie Review: Love those Coen brothers
Summary: 5 Stars
Modern fables are not the stuff that make Hollywood movie studio executives see dollar signs. As we can surmise from their dearth in the market, few good ones make it past the initial pitch. So all of us should be surprised when one does filter past the naysayers and make it to the silver screen."The Hudsucker Proxy" is a beautiful fable crafted by those two Hollywood nose-thumbers, Joel and Ethan Coen ("Raising Arizona", "Fargo", "The Big Lebowski"), my picks for best filmmakers of the last fifteen years. In "Hudsucker" they give us a magical world that hovers in time between 1930 and 1960 and fills it with Art Deco scenery, hard-bitten reporters, greedy tycoons, innocent rubes, and your favorite Whammo fads.
Our fable begins with the whimsical suicide of Hudsucker Industries' CEO (the always entertaining Charles Durning) and the elevation of a naive mailboy with big dreams, Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins), to his position. As scripted by the cigar-smoking corporate spinmeister, Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman), Hudsucker will be thrashed by the press for its brazen stupidity, the stock will dive, the board will buy up huge amounts of it, then Mussburger will steer the company back, making everyone rich. But Norville has a better idea.
So does star reporter, Amy Archer (Jennifer Jason Leigh doing her best Hepburn/Russell), who like her no-holds-barred sibling in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" wants to get the inside scoop on the new boy in town. Determined to get the best of the hick, she sidles up to him via her new "job" as his secretary, only to find his earnestness and honesty a glaring contrast to her own shriveled morality. Soon, unbeknownst to him, he wins her heart.
Soon, too, his new idea for a product sweeps the nation in a fad never before seen, jacking Hudsucker's stock far out of the picture for the now angry board. Determined to stop the record profits, Mussburger engineers a fall for Norville that will surely lead to him taking the permanent plunge, just as the company's namesake did.
But this is a true fable, so the supernatural element enters the picture in a delightfully satisfying way. The holiday theme near the end of the picture adds to the magic, making the picture a warm way to prepare for the season.
Some have accused "The Hudsucker Proxy" of being all gloss and no substance, a Frank Capra or Preston Sturges film that is easy on the eye yet lifeless, but I disagree strongly. The massive set design and powerful architecture in the film only serve to highlight the concept of mankind at odds with its own surroundings, good people out of place in a world that is too big for any of them. And that is the point of good fables, that what is real are the people and their courageous, honest, sincere lives, not the settings in which they act out their morality plays.
So forget the horrid title and buy "The Hudsucker Proxy". And for those that are fans of great production and set design, folks, this is how it is done. Fans of fables will not be left unsatisfied, either.
Rated "PG" for some adult themes (like suicide and other forms of personal destruction) and a tiny bit of talk, this film can be enjoyed by anyone from young teens up.
(This review covers the VHS version.)
Movie Review: "You know,...for kids!" Comic Genius! Top 5 All Time!
Summary: 5 Stars
It is always odd to love a movie, a cd, whatever because you know others are going to hate it for the same reasons that you love it. The Coen's always get a knee-jerk reaction from some, but this is one I really don't understand because the movie is so smart. The dialogue is amazing.
I read a review where some guy panned this because it rips on capitalism. Good grief, man. Loosen up and enjoy an intelligent, dark comedy.
Some nobody schlub from Muncie, Indiana, namely one Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins), arrives in the big town and has big plans. "You know, for kids". So begins one of the greatest movies ever written, acted, directed, edited, whatever. This is fantastic, great, superb, excellent... you get the point.
So, Norville is out to take on the world, fresh out of Muncie Business College. He carries his plan for the next big thing in his shoe, it is drawn out in great detail on a neatly folded piece of plain white paper; it is a perfect circle. "You know, for kids." Robbins committed so fully to this role that I cannot imagine anyone else being able to pull it off. His stupid but smart, funny but not, noble but humble, etc... portrayal is amazing.
Paul Newman, Sid Musburger, the # 2 guy, is looking for "a proxy, a pawn", someone that can fill the recently emptied head seat of the board of Hudsucker Industries; because Mr. Hudsucker leapt 43 stories "not counting the mezzanine". They need an idiot to make the stock drop and a Muncie man is perfect for that job. Heck, he even gets to pitch his idea to the board and they love it, for all the wrong reasons.
Buzz, the elevator boy is friggin' hilarious.
Jennifer Jason Leigh, does the fast talking, big city reporter schtick to perfection. She plays the hard-hearted softy very well and somehow makes it work between her and Robbins.
Every word in this film is perfectly planned and you will miss half of what is funny because you are laughing. Watch this at least twice but probably better 3 or 4 times to get all of the dialogue. I don't know what this screenplay looked like on paper, but by the time it was on film, a masterpiece of comic genius was created.
Surprisingly, not as many people as I would think have seen this movie, but I believe it should be required for everyone that has any appreciation for writing, comedy, dark humor, or film making.
This is the Coen Brother's Opus; sheer genius.
Movie Review: Excellent Comic Take on 50s Corporate America
Summary: 5 Stars
New York in the late 1950s. Norville Barnes (Robbins) is a nobody who gets a job in the hilariously nightmare-ish mail room of the vast Hudsucker Corporation. But he is ambitious. He has a wild business idea represented by a circle on a piece of paper he is given to waving at people. This of course instantly convinces them they are talking to a moron who has just, quite literally, reinvented the wheel. At it later transpires that is not what he has done. A moron, however, is exactly what the boardroom, led by evil Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman), wants. Company founding president Waring Hudsucker has just thrown himself to his death from the top floor and his fellow board members learn that the company rules deem his dominant share in the company stock must be put on sale to the general public in the New Year. If only they could get it to fall so low they could buy it themselves. If only they could hire such an idiot as President that shareholder confidence would collapse. At which point who should walk into Mussburger's office to deliver a letter but Barnes...The result is quite excellent movie. It's not quite as good as the best of the Coen Brothers later stuff which it often anticipates. Thus it starts out with a voice-over section as the camera sweeps into New York City from a distance, humourously establishing both the place and the central character, that strongly anticipates the opening of "Big Lebowski". And it's very evidently inspired by a host of earlier classic American movies in much the way "Lebowski" and "Oh Brother" were. The ghost of Frank Capra is never very far away. And the most important character I've not yet mentioned, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Amy, the hard boiled journalist who sets out to expose Barnes but ends up as the love interest, is clearly enough based on characters like Rosalind Russell's Hildy Johnson in "His Girl Friday". That's another movie this isn't quite as good as. But that again is praising it with faint damnation: most novels, including some great ones, aren't as good as "Mansfield Park"! And this is a truly splendid film, a really excellent, beautifully written and extremely funny movie that deserves to be better known.
Movie Review: You know . . . for movie lovers!
Summary: 5 Stars
Massively undervalued thematic sequel to *Barton Fink*. I say that because *The Hudsucker Proxy* (a bad title that guaranteed box-office oblivion, btw) treads a lot of the same water as the earlier film: hucksterism, commericalism, the notion that one person can singlehandedly come up with One Great Idea -- in short, the American Dream. This time, it's the world of business instead of Hollywood, but the corporate fatcats at Hudsucker Industries are relevant enough "proxies" for movie-studio fatcats; i.e., the point is well-taken. Indeed, the movie is -- as most Coen Brothers movies are -- about movies themselves, and you're not giving the Coens enough credit if you think *The Hudsucker Proxy* is merely a send-up of some Frank Capra movie. It's a send-up of the entire film industry, which is pretty cheeky, considering that this was their first "big-budget, major-studio" production. If you must have it: the plot concerns a doe-eyed graduate of Muncie Business College who winds up in the basement mailroom at Hudsucker Industries in New Yawk City. The President of the company has just taken a swan-dive from the 45th floor (not counting the mezzanine). Meanwhile, the fatcats on the Board of Directors, of which Paul Newman is the cattiest, come up with the brilliant idea of promoting a moron to the President's chair in order to devalue Hudsucker stock -- that way, they can buy up the remaining shares of the company, after which the moron can be comfortably dispensed with. But Tim Robbins, the putative moron, has one killer idea up his sleeve that throws a monkeywrench in the gears. But don't take all this too seriously. The fun's in the details . . . and, let's face it, you probably have to be in on the joke to really appreciate what the Coens are doing here. Meaning? They assume you have a knowledge of old-movie conventions, and that you appreciate the homage this movie pays to them. Basically, they insist that you bring something to the party. They insist you get off your Lazy-Boy and meet them halfway. Oh, by the way: the movie's hilarious, too.