Movie Review: I Heart Huckabees
Starring: Jude Law, Jason Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts, Isabella Hubbert
Directed by: David O. Russell

Hailed as the “best existential comedy in years,” one quickly realizes that they key qualifier in that sentence might very well mean the “only existential comedy in years.”

If that’s the case, then we really haven’t been missing a whole lot.

David O. Russell, director of one of my favorite movies Three Kings, (which introduced me to the work of actor/director Spike Jonze) takes a real departure from his cinematic vein with this movie. The teasers for this film portray the spirit accurately; i.e., a zany, off-the-wall cerebral comedy that ends up being pretty much about nothing.
This style of comedic film isn’t really anything new, having been pioneered in the last decade by the likes of Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and Wes Anderson (Rushmore, the Royal Tenenbaums, the Life Aquatic.) This being said, this seemed like a movie that would be right up my alley.

The two most important things a film like this requires for success is 1) a director that understands and shares the correct vision for the film, and 2) a script that is solid enough to pull it off. (See Charlie Kaufman’s work as textbook example as a stand-alone mind-screwing.)
This film, sadly, seems to struggle with both.

The Premise: Alfred (Schwartzman) hires two “everything-is-connected” existential detectives (Hoffman and Tomlin) to investigate a series of coincidental run-ins he’s had. Along the way, his nemesis Brad (Law) engages the detectives’ services as well, as well as gains the friendship of a burnt-out fireman (Wahlberg) struggling with the point of the universe.
Just like any business, however, any service is bound to have competitors, and the detectives work to prevent their clients from joining the teachings of rival “the-universe-is-pointless” existentialist Caterine Vauban (Hubbert.) At the end of the day, the fireman finds love again, Alfred sets fire to Brad’s jet skis, and Brad has an emotional breakdown.

Not bad for an hour and forty minutes.

Where the film goes wrong: About ten minutes into it.

On a philosophical and psychological level, this movie is very shallow. I am no scholar on Kafka, Nihilism or even Plato for that matter, but it didn’t take long to realize when this movie stepped out of the stream of intelligent reason and into an oozing puddle of chatter.
Whenever the correct characters were in the same room together and an important plot device was about to be revealed, soon enough the double-talk would make a not-so-surprise visit in a thinly veiled attempt to distract you from the truth that they really had no idea what they were talking about.
Which is fine, by the way! I don’t really care if they made actual sense or not of the plot. It wouldn’t have to be necessary. But the writer chooses to make the existential and transcendental philosophy core to the struggles characters face, thereby dooming the movie to a creamed-corn level of nutritional story-telling.

The great relief and truth that is found during the course of the films’ discourse, however, is that even those who believe in everything (and nothing) must eventually concede that there are ultimately only two truths: truth and deception. And for this movie, that’s quite an admission.
The more soul-searching characters question everything known about human existence from the first minute of film, invariably deciding, (at one point of the film or another) that everyone must be right. (Our favorite topic of conversation: the blurring of right vs. wrong.) However, even this film cannot escape the inevitability of that position. Eventually you will find that one thing that you cannot accept.
In this instance, it occurs in a scene when Alfred is using the meditation technique from one existentialist in the presence of the competing one. She screams at him “those are lies! You are lying to yourself!”
We were way beyond waist-deep in bull by this point, but it was the kernel of truth in the entire movie that essentially destroys their entire philosophy: the admission of truth and deception.

The other great concern with this film was with the director, David O. Russell. As I mentioned earlier, this style of subtle psycho-comic drama isn’t new. Wes Anderson has become a master at coaxing beautiful and tragic performances from his actors (his work with Bill Murray I believe led to Murray’s work on Coppola’s Lost in Translation which garnered Murray an Oscar nomination.) Spike Jonze’s work with Charlie Kaufman’s scripts has been remarkable because of the subtle way he is able to capture the tiniest of details essential to the story without making it obvious. Either of these directors I believe would have had a better feel for the direction this film needed to take. Indeed, in many sequences, it seemed as though Russell was trying to pirate some of their techniques, which only made the film seem even more like a rip-off from a more entertaining, capable moviemaker. (The casting of Schwartzman in the lead role was curious, since he appeared as the lead character in Anderson’s Rushmore.)

I plan on watching I Heart Huckabees again, because there was enough stuff happening in this film that I feel I might have missed a good deal on the first viewing. I don’t believe my opinion of the film will change greatly, so I write this review now, while the film is still fresh in my mind.

The Graaaade: C for less-than-heartwarming tale that ended up confusing the heck out of me.

I know I’ve been handing out a lot of “C’s” recently. Everything’s just been only so-so recently. I hope to encounter warmer waters soon. (Not meant to be a Pirates pun...we'll talk about that in a little while.)

T.