I Heart Huckabees  (2004)

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Jude Law, Jason Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts
Director: David O. Russell

Rating: R

Distributor: Fox Searchlight

Release Date: 10.01.04

Review Posted: 10.01.04

Spoilers: Minor

By George Schmidt

I Hate "Huckabees"

Filmmaker David O. Russell is a unique director/writer with some original promise as proved in his past films "Flirting With Disaster" and "Three Kings" but his latest self-indulgent mess described as an 'existential comedy' queries the absurd notion of "What if you made a comedy and nobody laughed?" The result is this annoying and exhaustingly frustrating to tolerate hodgepodge of free-associative thoughts, metaphysical theories and other naval-gazing New Age hippie nonsense.

The film opens with a Tourrette's -like litany of expletives espoused by environmentalist/poet Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman, who is building up a cottage industry of impossible cretins and uncannily looking more and more like Underdog!) the director of a grass-roots organization named Open Spaces who is at loggerhead with the titular Target-like superstore franchise and more specifically one of its corporate-ladder climbing jerks Brad Strand (Jude Law, wearing an electric blue power suit and a plastic smile) who has usurped Albert's plan of preserving a thatch of land earmarked for another store.  To make matters worse for Albert he is plagued by a series of coincidence chance encounters with a tall African doorman (don't ask) which leads him to consult with a husband and wife team of existential detectives, Bernard and Vivian Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman in a Pete Best shag and a surprisingly bosomy Lily Tomlin) who he hires to find out what's it all about.

That plot line alone is a lot to swallow but when you add in an emotionally troubled firefighter named Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg getting his ya-yas out) who has problems with petroleum (again, whatever) among other things and the superstore's spokes model Dawn Campbell (the fetching Naomi Watts attempting to be loony), Strand's pallid squeeze AND the Jaffe's nemesis in out-there investigations in the form of Caterine Vauban (a haggard, badly lit looking Isabelle Huppert) whose id over ego iconoclastic form of her own theories of how one should look for oneself mixes into a grab-bag of teeth gnashing inanity and conversations one would express in a college freshman year of Psyche 101 drivel.

There are some moments of eye-rollingly awful acting, writing and directing (Albert and Tommy bonding as each's 'other' with Huppert involving a large hippity hop kiddie ball-to-the-face to FEEL and ultimately a romp in the mud is almost as incredulous but nowhere near as nauseating as a Freudian visual of Law BREASTFEEDING Schwartzman!!)  The only saving grace is Wahlberg's occasional bouts of anger/violence and Hoffman and Tomlin as the kooky dicks have an undeniable Zen chemistry.

Normally I'd applaud a filmmaker for taking a risk and chance in his desire to express himself but with this overwrought and painfully unfunny exercise in masturbatory indulgences I must defer to good taste and in general sanity: the 'running gag' of Law's ridiculous anecdotes involving Shania Twain and her dislike of chicken salad sandwiches is only more obtuse when the pop singer makes a leaden cameo to underscore the stupidity of it all.

Truly one of the biggest messes in recent memory of wasting a truly talented ensemble only begs to question “why” indeed!

Film Rating: ê1/2  (out of 4)

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