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The Hudsucker Proxy


THE HUDSUCKER PROXY
Joel and Ethan Cohen's imagination was really in overdrive with their 1994 black comedy The Hudsucker Proxy, but I wish the imagination had been accompanied with a little more originality and a little less cinematic pyrotechnics.

It's New York 1958 where we witness the owner of a huge corporation called Hudsucker Industries kill himself. The board and majority stockholders need to install someone in his chair that they can manipulate in order to take controlling interest in the company and a young mailroom employee named Norville Barnes is installed, but Barnes isn't as easily manipulated as the mustache twirling company president Sidney Mussberger finds out. Throw in the mix a fast talking female reporter sent to expose Barnes after he becomes a success and you have most of what you need for another wild Cohen Brothers ride.

This film is a lovingly detailed homage to screwball comedies of the 30's and 40's like His Girl Friday and in that respect, the Cohen's story totally works, we see immediately what they'going for here. The problem here is the lack of surprises in the story...the story goes to all the places you expect it to and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but when toasting a film genre like this, a genre where we know what to expect, some surprises should be provided along the way here and they aren't. What we get instead of the dose of originality that we should is a lot of cinematic smoke and mirrors and over the top symbolism that moves at such a lightening pace it's hard to figure out exactly what the Cohen brothers are trying to say.

This does not mean this film was not entertaining and did not hold my attention, but with a little more care devoted to this germ of a terrific story, this film could have been something really amazing instead of the overly stylized ride that takes a little too long to get going.

The Cohens' hand-picked cast serves the story brilliantly though, headed by baby-faced Tim robbins, finding yet another role where that face aids in the character's appeal. Jennifer Jason Leigh stirs up images of Katharine Hepburn, Jean Arthur, and Rosalind Russell in her lady reporter and Paul Newman chews the scenery with movie-style pinache as Mussberger and seems to really be enjoying it too.

The film is rich with incredible production values including some dizzying and imaginative camera work, amazing art direction/set direction, stunning costumes, and Carter Burwell's incredible music, which should have won an Oscar. Not the classic it should have been, but well worth the ride.