The Coen brothers’ The Hudsucker Proxy remains one of their most undervalued films: a screwball parable about ambition, capitalism, and the American talent for self-mythologizing. Set in a stylized, art-deco Manhattan, the film follows a naïve mailroom clerk installed as a corporate stooge, only to upend the scheme with a deceptively simple invention. Tim Robbins’s guileless performance, Jennifer Jason Leigh’s rapid-fire newsroom patter, and a gleefully cynical supporting cast give the film its snap, while Roger Deakins’s glossy cinematography and Carter Burwell’s soaring score elevate the satire into something operatic. Silly on the surface, sharp underneath, Hudsucker improves with age.
