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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.

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