When Roger Ebert reviewed Joel and Ethan Coens' The Hudsucker Proxy back in 1994, he playfully told his readers that his review stemmed directly from two differing opinions. One was from a little devil holding a pitchfork, and the other from an angel. As the two entities "whisper" their resepctive opinions into Ebert's ear, we soon realize the conundrum he is in; this is truly a divisive film. 14 years later, I feel his pain. So how do you offer up words of insight about a film of which there is so much to love, and yet so much to scratch your head about as well? In my most "ebertesque" of attempts, I shall do my best.
First the good: The art direction is utterly fantastic. The 1950's New York time period is masterfully characterized in every one of the film's decorative set pieces. The camera captures all of the sets' bleak, gray tones, whether shot indoors or out, without managing to be gloomy in nature. The Capra style fast-moving dialogue and delivery is spot-on, and delivered with such a rhythm that many of the movies key scenes are entertaining to listen to, if not always to watch. The performances are deliberately angled towards satire, genuinely consistent, and mostly watchable. Tim Robbins and Paul Newman both play their respective parts with a kind of dim-witted gusto, and sinister bravado.
Then there's the confusing. It's a movie that can't seem to figure itself out by the time the Coens have asked the audience to move from noir, political satire, to black comedy, to drama, to fantasy while still expecting us to buy everything we are seeing. But that's the question. Do they really expect us to buy these characters, or to get the same kick they do out of running them through the moral and ethical ringer until they are utterly mangled. It's the kind of thing one would assume the Coens have gained quite an affinity for after viewing much of their vast body of work. The film is chock-full of plot devices and gimicks that convince you to stay in your seat. But that's exactly the problem. The film tries desperately to make up for what it lacks in substance with style. It's a trick that may work for at least half of the film, but had run its course on me at about the 45 min. mark.
It's important to give the Coens their credit though. They have an interesting history of following up their grittiest thrillers with the most off-beat comedies (think Lebowski on the heels of Fargo and this year's Burn After Reading less than a year after the wide release of the oscar-winning No Country For Old Men. The Coens have always made films by no one's rules but their own, even when it deliberately flies in the face of Hollywood. While some of their projects are truly enigmas, in some strange anti-establishment sort of way, it helps to know they are doing what they want to do, and having fun in the process. Although I didn't necessarily like Hudsucker I didn't exactly not like it either. If the Coens truly are (as Joel Coen himself put it in last year's oscar acceptance speech) playing "in their own corner of the sandbox" then I am at least interested to see what castles they continually build. Even if some of them stand only long enough to be washed away in the sea of truly great films.
2.5/5
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