Quick Impressions- Hail Caesar

Hail Caesar is a comedic pastiche on an iconic period in film history. Directed by the Coen Bros, I had high expectations for this film. Set in the raucous surreal world of 1950s big studio Hollywood it delivers in some very Coen-esque ways. It features a tableau of indelible characters and deeply, resonantly funny long take scenes, center-focused on human foible and offbeat strangeness. It also has some magnificent ode-to-Hollywood set pieces and takes great care in visualizing the last lingering days of Hollywood's golden age.

Where it falls short is in never finding its focus. It gives us a hundred and one characters and situations, any of which could carry the movie's emotional core. But instead of giving any of them the full weight of narrative it moves between them, forgetting almost entirely about the one previous as soon as they're off screen.

Naturally there is a single narrative thread that carries the movie and even a central character who is in 80% of the scenes. But this central plot, and this person feel lightly treated and insubstantial in order to make room for the crowded catalog of secondary characters that push him to the margins in most scenes. Every one of them more interesting than him, they each seem to cry out for their own movie. It becomes frustrating and the movie ends feeling shambolic and unfinished. It needed a rewrite from Wes Anderson, a tightening of the nuts and bolts to bring the pieces into common purpose and deliver a story with drive and purpose, as well as personalities and great scenes.

Still I recommend it, particularly for fans of the Coens or of Hollywood mythos (of which I am both). I expect it will have high re-watch value even though it ultimately sinks to somewhere near the middle of the Coen Bros oeuvre.