"An existential comedy"

I ♥ Huckabees (2004): 7/10

Poster (c) Fox Serachlight

Do you ♥ Huckabees? There's been almost as much talk on internet message boards about the choice of saying ? instead of "love", almost as much as why Spike Lee chose to title his latest film She Hate Me. It's because director/co-writer David O. Russell wants to comment on the superficiality of culture today. He partially does that, but he also talks about how absurd the search for answers is, which is the complete opposite of superficiality. What's Russell trying to say here? Is it to take the middle road, the road between partial nihilism (also talked about in the film) and the search for truth. I really have no idea what I'm saying, just like the film. Nothing in the film really makes any sense at all, but does it really matter? There's some very funny scenes, a great cast, and some completely left-field scenes.

Albert (Jason Schwartzman) is an environmental activist, working with "everything store" chain Huckabees rising executive Brad Stand (Jude Law) for some sort of environmental deal with the opening of new stores. Albert finds a business card at one of his meetings with Brad for Vivian and Bernard Jaffe (Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman), "existential detectives". They go to try to figure out the secret to Albert's life. Other players include Mark Wahlberg as Tommy, who goes to Caterine (Isabelle Huppert), a rival existential detective who believes in the opposite of the Jaffes, and Dawn (Naomi Watts), as the lead spokesmodel of Huckabees and Brad's girlfriend. Do you follow all that? Neither do I.

If you can follow the plot, you obviously can follow what they're saying and probably believe in it, which is exactly what Russell is trying to satirize here. Bernard's "bag method" makes no sense whatsoever, nor does anything he talks about, or, for that matter, what anyone talks about. But more importantly is if it's entertaining, and I ♥ Huckabees certainly is entertaining. Not just from the standpoint of trying to figure out what the hell's going on here, either. It's an entertaining comedy due to what it is made of. The quirkiness of the movie works well with the plot, and some of the effects are pretty cool. Personally, I thought that none of the characters were as "out there" as their character required. Albert's an enthusiastic activist, but what else? A film like this needs to have more outrageous characters, not stereotypes. Well, more like general, undefined characters. Brad is a generic exec, etc. The only outrageous characters were the detectives, because, well, they were existential detectives.

But I ♥ Huckabees is a pretty funny movie. You know the type of movie you'll be seeing as it begins with Albert yelling a string of profanities. It's repeated a few times, it's funny, and there's a good amount of other funny parts. There's some slapstick, there's some wordplay, there's a bit of the ol' in-out, there's everything for everybody. And for the more dramatic aspects, there's some new-age stuff in there (although nothing as stupid as What the #$*! Do We Know?), and some good scenes for our stars to shine. Overall, the cast does very well together, especially Hoffman and Tomlin, who really stand out here. Schwartzman, who is alienating himself from the mess that was Rushmore, does a very good job here, too. It's amazing what a filmography this 24-year-old has. Law's British accent comes out a few times, and Watts is underused, but both used to their full potential (if that makes any sense). And Wahlberg did a good job, considering he's basically forgotten about.

The score here for I ♥ Huckabees is a great score, as it usually is for quirky movies like this. And I don't think anyone can say that I ♥ Huckabees isn't quirky. It's just not as quirky as it needs to be.

Rated R for language and a sex scene.

Review Date: October 12, 2004