The Hudsucker Proxy

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Jordan, Tyler

The Coen Brothers/Raimi love-in continues.

This is one of my favourites.I love the design and the style of this film. Everything from the set/costumes/structure/convention/dialogue and characters are styled in a very specific way. And I find it all hilarious. It recalls a classic 40's period film but with a slight satiric tinge to it all. And the score is just beautiful and lush, the main theme is iconic.

The film does some things that at first glance may seem very unusual but when seen through the eyes of 40's film conventions they start to make perfect sense. Why else would you stop the film dead for a dream dance number? Something I talk a great deal about in my Red Shoes post. The film even has a very literal Deus Ex Machina.

Tim Robbins is wonderfully naive in the role of the chump. Jennifer Jason Leigh is doing some hilarious Katherine Hepburn impersonation. Also it wouldn't be a Raimi-related film without The Chin! And as usual, the dialogue is just hilarious, witty and intelligent.

There is so much to love here. It is highly stylised but also very rewarding, if you can handle the ending. (I feel like I say that about a lot of Coen films.)