Movie Review - I [Heart] Huckabees

I don't normally read movie reviews. Those times that I do, I don't put a lot of stock in what they have to say. This movie is a prime example of the 'why' of that. I'm not going to name the scribe in question, but I am going to quote liberally from a review in the local paper that I read just prior to going to see IHH. It is a bit daft of me, knocking reviews inside of my own movie review, but hey, I just don't care. Live with it. Let's get rollin'.

The creators of "I [Heart] Huckabees" used up all their cleverness on the title.

A comedy about "existential" detectives who tail clients trying to figure out why their lives are out of balance, the movie is disjointed and pointless. But its biggest shortcoming is that it's not funny.

At least, not in these parts. Perhaps quips about the eternal struggle between existential atheists and existential theists have 'em rolling in the aisles at the Los Angeles chapter of the Jean-Paul Sartre Fan Club. But the rest of us will be hard-pressed to work up a decent chuckle.

Wow. I don't even know where to begin deconstructing this tripe. This is not a comedy about existentialism. I didn't let it bother me much, but I'd be surprised if the theories the movie borrows from Sartre, et. al are even accurate. So let me say it straight out: none of that matters. This is a comedy. Period. It draws from a fine heritage of your more verbal comedies. Movies like Fletch, and more recently something like Rushmore. I will apologize personally to our intrepid newspaper reporter for having to sit through a funny movie that also makes you think. I guess that a degree in journalism no longer means you're actually college educated.

Really, the "existential" theories aren't even that hard to follow. There are two. One is that everything is interconnected - all things happen for a reason and are related. The second is that nothing is connected - all things happen for no reason, and nothing matters. It's actually even more simple than all of that, though. My trusty little online dictionary tells me that existential, defined, means: relating to or dealing with existence (especially with human existence).

So what we have is a comedy; people doing things in a humorous fashion, with a plot that deals with human existence. I didn't hear too many people complaining that Seinfeld wasn't funny, and I just outlined the basic plot of any one episode of that. It seems to me that our "reporter" used up all his cleverness on a Sartre joke, and an un-funny one at that. I border on being offended by the intimation that folks in the midwest can't enjoy an intellectual humor.

The film's pedigree is impressive. It's the first project for David O. Russell since "Three Kings." And he put together a powerhouse cast, including Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts and Isabelle Huppert, plus a cameo by singer Shania Twain.

Which only goes to prove that talent alone is not enough. You also need a premise that doesn't run out of steam before the end of the first reel.

Well, I will agree on one point: it is an impressive cast. Jude Law and Naomi Watts play great stereotyped corporate, consumeristic types. Hoffman, Tomlin, and Huppert are equally well cast as the eccentric investigators. Marky Mark is brilliant as the eccentric Tommy. He plays the quirky character as well as Brad Pitt could have, which is high praise. Along with Jason Schwartzman as the "lead" character, they all blend well together into a great ensemble cast.

Schwartzman hires Hoffman and Tomlin to help him solve a problem in his life. In the course of working with them, Schwartzman meets Wahlberg, another one of their clients, and Hoffman and Tomlin end up working with Law and Watts, two workers for the Huckabees Corporation, against which Schwartzman is rallying, trying to save a forest. The wildcard is Huppert, who is a rival investigator who tries to steal Schwartzman and Wahlberg.

Perhaps that seems complicated... but it's all connected together. And at the same time it all stands on its own. Which is after all the point.

I'll try a couple more examples of how easy the film is to follow. Hoffman explains that everything is like points on a blanket. He pokes his finger into it, and says "this point is you, this one is me, this one over here is Huckabees, and this one the Eiffel Tower", to which Schwartzman replies "so they're all essentially the same". Get it? Huppert has Schwartzman and Wahlberg whacking each other with a giant rubber ball in order to get their minds to just let go of everything and just "be" - to not think of the big picture, but to just exist in that one specific moment. Also easy, eh?

In the end, the movie is a satire of our daily lives, and the different ways we all live: The corporate culture of Huckabees employees Watts and Law, the hippie tree-saving of Schwartzman, the traumatic problems that Wahlberg (a firefighter) has, even the lives of our detectives. It's creative, and clever, and just flat-out hilarious.

One final parting shot at our review. So it says:

Great line: "So, I'm hiring you to spy on me?"

Man. That's not even the best line in that scene. I will grant him that it's one of the few you could print out of context like that, and most of the rest of the movie is fairly profane, but still, what a weak choice. Personally, I'd have gone with the "pure being ball-thing", but maybe that's just me (or Bec influencing me). Of course, if you're into the whole stand-on-its-own thing, you could go with Watts' "You can't handle my infinite nature, can you?" Either way, I've been giggling about this movie for two weeks now, and I will see it again before it leaves the theaters, and own it when it comes out on DVD. How's that for an endorsement? If I were going to put this on the Trent scale (even though it's not a true Trent movie), I'd have to give it a half-Trent.

It's as simple as this: go see I [Heart] Huckabees. You'll laugh.

--11/01/2004