Ostensibly the tale of a day in the life of Eddie Mannix, a
blunt, beleaguered Hollywood fixer, Hail,
Caesar! is in fact a film about nothing at all. And it’s all the better for
it. I recently endured a number of vignette-themed films where a vast and
diverse cast is mashed together into one film with many small plots that are
too self-contained for me to care about for any extended period of time. After that tortuous experience, all that I really
needed in order to buy in to Joel and Ethan Cohen’s latest atmospheric comedy was the
simple overture of a hero, and Josh Brolin provided that quite capably as Eddie
Mannix.
It is an undeniably busy day for Mannix. Each new problem he
encountered offered an opportunity for amusement and wry nostalgia. Whether he
was navigating the disparate machinations of identical twin reporters, easing
the transition of a spaghetti western star into highbrow mainstream,
legitimizing an accidental pregnancy or paying ransom for the return of an actor
who was kidnapped from the set of the studio’s latest greatest epic, Mannix
tackled each ridiculous challenge with a comical level of serious competence. Then
(of course) the Coen brothers threw in the metaphorical kitchen sink with a
wholly unnecessary musical number that held me oddly torn between hilarity,
confusion and awe.
When I consider it as a whole, I have to admit that the plot
is silly and convoluted, but it is excuse enough to watch an assortment of
talented people make the most out of odd situations in a lovingly recreated
1950s Hollywood. I would rate Hail,
Caesar! a champagne cocktail. Fancy, frivolous but highly enjoyable, the
drink is much like the Hollywood glamour that it highlights: so pointless and
yet so fun.
Cheers,
Em
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