Joel and Ethan Coen have a little fun with this carefree romp through the 1950s executive suite. Tim Robbins plays Norman Barnes, a naïve yokel who trips off the bus and falls straight to the top of a major international corporation, literally taking an express elevator from the crowded basement mail room to the president’s office. His breakneck appointment is a scheme by the bigwigs, a plot to artificially deflate stock prices while solidifying their control, but Barnes’s adorably simple-minded ideas catch on with the public. He becomes an overnight media darling and the conniving corporates (led by a gravel-voiced Paul Newman) are forced to pivot to their Plan B. Meanwhile, Jennifer Jason Leigh puts on a heavy Mid-Atlantic accent, channeling Rosalind Russell in _His Girl Friday_ as a pushy, fast-talking, “one of the boys” press reporter who goes undercover to dig some dirt on the new boss.

In _The Hudsucker Proxy_, the Coens pay homage to many such golden-aged archetypes. The wide-eyed innocent who’s in way over his head. The manipulative social elites who beg for comeuppance. The big-mouthed tough girl who’s softer than she lets on. These are all familiar caricatures, more than a little worn out, but the eccentric performances of an all-star cast are good enough to pull them back from the brink. Robbins is the physical embodiment of a puppy dog: all knees and elbows, still growing into his body (and the big boys’ world) despite standing at least a head taller than the men and women around him. He’s both insightful and clueless. Leigh’s worldly damsel can’t help pulling the wool over the eyes of such a rube, then regretting it when he turns out to be deeper than the clowns she’s been running with. And Newman is everything you’d want from a foil, cheerfully spitting and growling his way through a cloud of cigar smoke to toss a dozen dirty obstacles in their way.

Light, silly and playful, this was a nice break from the dark intensity of _Fargo_ and _Barton Fink_, which bookend it in the Coens’ filmography. It’s nothing monumental or groundbreaking, a pastiche which boldly wears its inspirations on its sleeve (particularly the vast, towering architectural details, which seem to have been delivered straight from Lang’s _Metropolis_), but the characters are warm, the cast give us their best and the dialogue is a real hoot. I’ve been enjoying it for years.

I'm sure if I googled around for a minute I'd be able to find an established term that describes the style/vibe of this film, but instead I'm going to reinvent the wheel and describe it myself. It exists in a heightened version of reality. All of the ideas are familiar, and are grounded conceptually in the real world, but they're turned up to 11 in absurdist ways that are used to add humor and/or visual style. If I had to guess what the established term is, it would probably be some distant relative of fantasy or an offshoot of magical realism or the like. Regardless of what it's called, I'm a fan. I was on board with the quirky sense of humor and, with only one exception, I enjoyed the caricature-esque portrayals from the cast. That exception is Jennifer Jason Leigh's portrayal of Amy Archer. I don't think this has anything to do with the performance, which is probably great. The problem is that the accent and character are just too tied to the cliché for me to disconnect them (I blame the reporter character in one of the later seasons of BoJack Horseman). In any case, I don't know that any portrayal of this type of character will ever feel convincing to me, because I inherently associate it with over the top acting. Aside from that, my one other big critique is the film's third act, which felt rushed and also leaned a bit too much on the fantasy relative to the rest of the film. Despite those two issues, I still have no problem recommending the film, thanks primarily to Tim Robbins' fantastic central performance and the clever writing typical of the Coen brothers.