The Coen Brothers Film Experience #6: ‘The Hudsucker Proxy’
Catch next week’s Coen Brothers Film Experience entry on Wednesday, November 18th: Fargo
This was my second viewing of the Coen Brothers’ “The Hudsucker Proxy”. The first time I watched it, I forced myself to sit down and experience it from beginning to end. For some reason, and I have my theories, it is always on TV and I kept catching glimpses of scenes here and there without ever seeing enough to bait me to watch the whole thing through. The scenes I kept seeing looked pretty good – light comedy, Tim Robbins, and Paul Newman so I decided to rent it and see what it was all about….
Wow. I really disliked it the first time around. I couldn’t, and still can’t, put my finger on the true reason why but I know it had something to do with the overall blandness of the movie and the irritating firecracker that is Jennifer Jason Leigh’s (JJL) character.
Now, upon revisiting ‘Hudsucker’ for purposes of my Coen Brothers Film Experience series, I, like the main theme of the film seem to have come full circle on my thoughts about its merits…even though JJL still irritated the fuck out of me.
Hit the jump for my thoughts on “The Hudsucker Proxy”
“The Hudsucker Proxy” was released in 1994 and is co-written by the Coen Brothers and Sam Raimi. Narrated by Bill Cobbs, ‘Hudsucker’ is a story about circles, clocks, what goes around comes around, the hula hoop, and second chances. Tim Robbins plays Norville Barnes, a business admin graduate from the small town of Muncie, Indiana who lands in New York city looking for a job with the dream of getting his invention (a circle on a scrap of paper) made and on the market. In parallel, the great Waring Hudsucker (played by Charles Durning), President of Hudsucker Industries, jumps out of his boardroom window. This leaves the Board of Directors, led by Paul Newman’s scheming Sidney Mussberger, to find a replacement, a man they can manipulate…and thus begins the tale. John Mahoney, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Bruce Campbell also star.
It’s hard not to enjoy ‘Hudsucker’ for what it is – a light hearted period piece with the classic Coen pacing and dialogue. Whether it was supposed to be more, I couldn’t tell you. But it was the ‘more’ I think I was looking for the first time I watched the movie. The thing is, there is still so much that is great about it. The never ending circular representations whether in theme, dialogue or production design are fun to look for. The montage at the beginning of the film full of corporate fat cats guffawing in the boardroom, then next to the ticker, then with cigars and drinks in hand, then at the tailors, and then at a press conference etc… is gold. On the same note, Newman’s conniving Mussberger is a treat to watch even if it isn’t his best role. Even the random screaming sequences that I didn’t like in “Raising Arizona”, or “Miller’s Crossing” seemed right at home here and actually had me laughing…that damn blue letter!
It’s the actors that make the movie, even though the production design and New York setting are also very impressive. John Mahoney nails his character. He plays the fast talking editor of the newspaper and every time he delivered his lines I was amazed at how he was able to talk so quickly and still enunciate his words properly. Even Bruce Campbell, whom I’m guessing appears courtesy of the Sam Raimi connection does his thing as a campy reporter. He loves that shit, and his fans eat it up. I can see why. He’s so subtle in his mannerisms that he could easily be taken from the faux era of this film and be plunked down in the real thing and make it work. It’s unfortunate really that these guys and Tim Robbins, who is great as Norville wind up having to share the screen with JJL and her character…
JJL ruined the movie for me the first time and weighs heavily on my liking of the movie the second time as well. All it really comes down to is two things: The first is her portrayal of “the fast talking career gal”. It’s downright irritating. The inflections in her voice, the head shakes and hair swinging, and all the damned spastic hand waving is enough to want to turn her off. The second, if you can get by the grandiosity, is the fact that her character is so poorly written. She is supposed to be ‘one of the guys’, this Pulitzer winning journalist that will go up against anyone and win the scoop on a story and yet the moment she meets Norville, she becomes a wishy washy dame, sulking on a roller coaster of mixed emotions. In my mind, this character is the flaw to an otherwise truly decent movie.
The Bottom Line: 3.5/5. The big sets, the over the top characters (almost all but one are great), and the story narration make it a fun movie to experience. “The Hudsucker Proxy” is not the Coen Brothers’ best work but it does have a lot going for it and is worth a viewing if you’ve never seen it. If you’ve seen it once and didn’t like it, you might be surprised when you revisit it. I know I was.
After six films viewed for the Coen Brothers Film Experience, here is the list of films in the order of my liking:
1. A Serious Man (2009)
2. Miller’s Crossing (1990)
3. Blood Simple (1984)
4. Barton Fink (1991)
5. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
6. Raising Arizona (1987).
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What did you think of “The Hudsucker Proxy” the first time you saw it? Leave your comments below or find me on Twitter!
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