Review of The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) by Max M — 24 May 2008

I always find it interesting that when talking to people who say they are huge Coen Brothers fans, it turns out the only pictures of theirs they have seen are The Big Lebowski, Fargo, and No Country for Old Men. Really. More often than not they haven't even seen Raising Arizona!

And while those pictures are fantastic (except for No Country, which having seen it twice now I still find pretentious, cryptic, and pointless) the one that hardly anyone has heard of (this side of Crime Wave, the terrible comedy they wrote and Sam Raimi directed, back in 1985 - in fact, Raimi is a credited co-writer on this picture, which also happened to be written at the same time as Crime Wave) is this little gem.

The Coen's do their version of Preston Sturges / Frank Capra films here (a wide-eyed mail-room clerk with big ideas gets promoted to head of Hudsucker Industries after the previous president takes a dive out a 44th floor window. The idea is to depress the stock so much that the board of directors can snap it up cheap and take controlling interest in the company) yet make it distinctly their own.

Beautiful art deco set design by Dennis Gassner, a water-tight script, and a running motif of circles symbolizing the passage of time and the brief collision of events of which the story depicts, make this a terrific and true Coen Brothers picture.