Viking Night: The Hudsucker Proxy
By Bruce Hall
May 21, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Our story concerns events following the death of Waring Hudsucker (Charles Durning), a successful titan of industry who retires by hurling himself from a conference room window, right in front of the board of investors. Second in command is a scheming predator named Mussburger (Paul Newman), who discovers that unless he buys back Hudsucker's stock before the end of the year, the Board will lose control of the company. In an amusing scene whose dialogue is reminiscent of a fractured Dr. Seuss story, the Board concocts a plan to hire the stupidest person they can find to run things into the ground and deplete the stock. This will ensure that when the time is right, they can regain control of the corporation for pennies on the dollar.
Enter Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins), a sweet natured navel gazer who might be smarter than he looks, but still not enough to find a job. He stumbles across a help wanted ad that lands him in the Hudsucker mailroom. A chance assignment leads to a private audience with Mussburger, during which a fire breaks out, a window gets broken and a million dollar contract is destroyed. In a flash of inspiration, Mussburger realizes he's found his fool. Barnes is installed as President, and soon his vapid mug is on the cover of every newspaper in America. Hudsucker stock plummets, and the Board rejoices. Everything is going according to plan, until the story catches the eye of investigative reporter Amy Archer (Jennifer Jason Leigh).
Archer suspects the arrangement to be a corporate stock swindle, and makes it her business to expose Norville to the world. But after talking her way into his inner circle, she discovers that there's more depth to this lovable dimwit than her cynicism has led her to believe. Better yet, when Norville uses his position to realize a lifelong dream, he accidentally turns the company around! This blows a hole in Mussburger's plot and makes Norville a target for something far more sinister than a fast talking reporter looking for dirt. The story sets itself up for a good versus evil showdown that we never quite get - at least, not in a way that’s consistent with the story’s internal logic. There are so many competing themes here, and so much unfulfilled subtext that Hudsucker feels like a decent movie made out of the exploded bits of other, more narratively coherent films.
Sometimes it’s a predictable jab at Big Business - which is always amusing to see in a movie, since making movies is the biggest business there is. Sometimes it’s an amusing, but uneven film noir satire. Then, it’s a hollow parable on good versus evil. Then it’s a surprise supernatural thriller, an unsuccessful romantic comedy and a cleverly retconned toy industry origin story. Sometimes it feels like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Sometimes it plays like outtakes from a remake of It's a Wonderful Life. And...sometimes it's just weird and grating. The Hudsucker Proxy tries out so many things, and comes at its story from so many different angles that it’s hard to figure out what you’re supposed to take from it. And even if all you want is to sit, stare and be entertained, it’s unclear how you’re supposed to do THAT because at any given point it’s impossible to tell what kind of movie this is supposed to be.
I almost feel bad saying that because the set and costume design is wonderful, the music is wonderful, and everyone throws themselves into their roles with such abandon, it’s hard not to have as much fun as they are. Robbins couldn’t be more ideal as the doe eyed schmuck with a heart of gold. Paul Newman slips into Mussburger’s double stitched trousers almost as easily as he adopts his cold, serpentine persona. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character might be the most divisive; her haughty, staccato manner of speaking is clearly meant to evoke vintage Hepburn, but the movie is set in 1958 for a reason. Her character feels about 20 years too late, an unfrozen relic of war era cinema whose significance might seem quaint even to her contemporaries. It’s an amazing performance that’s unfortunately too out of place to be much more than a baffling distraction.
But the bigger crime is that for a movie that’s part romantic comedy, there’s zero chemistry between the leads. Robbins and Leigh are individually attractive people, but I just don’t see them passing the “stuck in the elevator” test. Add to this a final act that keeps pulling plot twists out of its ass almost up to the final scene, and the end result is that The Hudsucker Proxy will probably annoy the hell out of you. But it’s full of such good natured charm, it tries so hard and it does so in such an openly enthusiastic way that it’s impossible for me not to give it points for effort. If it’s easy to love the Cohens, it should be easy to appreciate the effort behind The Hudsucker Proxy. It’s a mess of a movie without a clear sense of direction or goals but at the end, it kind of leaves you feeling good anyway.
Just as it’s impossible to hate the ridiculous looking macaroni sculpture your kid made for you in art class, I can’t hate the cinematic equivalent of such an honestly sweet, well intentioned gesture.