I Heart Huckabees
Directed by: David O. Russell
Written by: David O. Russell and Jeff Baena
Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Mark Wahlberg, Jude Law, Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Naomi Watts

It seems like everyone’s making quirky comedies these days, and I can’t say it’s a trend I dislike. Maybe people have finally come to terms with the lameness of the formulaic Saturday Night Live vehicles and romantic comedies that have dominated the funny pictures for so many years. Maybe today’s cynical movie-going audiences actually thrive on originality and wit. Or maybe it’s just that making a dark comedy with a wacky edge is the only way for directors to be respected artistically for making people laugh.

Writer/director David O. Russell is no stranger to the concept of quirky comedy; his 1999 film Three Kings was an overlooked and misunderstood dark comic gem.However, what he seems to have overlooked himself with his latest film, I Heart Huckabees, is that simply making a movie weird doesn’t necessarily make it a masterpiece.The movie definitely has a lot of winning elements to it, but it doesn’t quite live up to its potential.

Billed as an “existential comedy”, the movie centers around a guy named Albert (Jason Schwartzmann), who experiences a series of strange coincidences in his life and wonders about their significance. When he finds a business card in the pocket of a suit jacket, he is lead to the office of a pair of so-called existential detectives (Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman) who investigate the life situations of their clients by following them around and taking notes on even their most mundane activities (yes, even in the bathroom).What are they hoping to find? Why, the answers to all the big questions of course.Through them, Albert also meets a fireman named Tommy (Mark Wahlberg) whose wife is leaving him because of his constant preoccupation with the deeper meaning of life (not to mention his obsession with the world’s petroleum crisis). Albert and Tommy ride their bicycles around in search of the ultimate truth (with Tommy outfitted in his big floppy fireman boots the whole time).

To say that I Heart Huckabees requires a second viewing to fully appreciate it is an understatement. It probably requires a lot more than that to really get your head around it. That is, if there’s really anything to get your head around in the first place. I’m all for cryptic and cerebral film experiences, but this one was so out in left field that it became hard to follow. The characters are shouting so much rapid-fire philosophy for the entire duration that it grows tiresome and nearly impossible to understand what’s happening. I’m sure this movie is going to inspire a lot of walk outs in just about every theatre that it plays, and normally that would be an indication that the movie is intelligent, challenging and potentially very rewarding. But for once I found myself almost envying the people who chose to abandon this film halfway through.

The main problem is that a lot of the time it feels like David O. Russell is occupying Charlie Kaufman or P.T. Anderson’s domain without letting his own voice shine through. He tries to conjure up weirdness out of thin air. He employs surreal imagery and effects that seem to be strange just for the sake of being strange. Does anyone really need to see a dream sequence of Jason Schwartzmann suckling milk from the teat of Jude Law with breasts?The off-kilter score by Jon Brion (Punch Drunk Love, Magnolia, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind) definitely helps recreate the feel of these other chaotic films as well.

Part of me thinks that once again David O. Russell is being misunderstood. In James Berardinelli’s review of I Heart Huckabees, he claims that the movie is a satire of other pretentious, philosophical movies (perhaps like those of P.T. Anderson and Charlie Kaufman?). I admit that when taken from that angle, the movie seems a little more comprehendable, but I certainly didn’t pick up on it at the time and it’s a little disappointing to think that all the philosophical mumbo-jumbo is precisely that. In some ways it feels like a cop out… an easy way to make a quirky comedy without having a point.

Make no mistake, the characters are all very likeable in this movie. I laughed quite a bit, and in particular I was most happy to see Mark Wahlberg back in a comedic role — which is his strongest suit if you ask me. Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin are also unforgettable as they creep around spying on their clients and maintain straight faces in the most unlikeliest of circumstances. The casting is great and the performances are superb, but ultimately you don’t care what happens to these characters and you don’t really even know what you’re waiting to see happen. The movie leads you in search of answers only to leave you feeling more baffled than you were when it started.

Is everything really connected? Is there meaning or is it all just a void of nothingness? All I know is that I didn’t connect with this movie, and I didn’t get any real meaning out it either. On the surface it was a mostly entertaining experience full of bizarre characters and situations. And maybe that’s all it was supposed to be, but I can’t help but feel like the movie is trying to accomplish something more and never really gets there. If this movie’s sole purpose was to spoof surreal art-house flicks then David O. Russell is squandering some great acting and intriguing off-beat ideas so he can pull one over all of us and it just seems like a bit of a waste to me. — Sean