I ♥ HUCKABEES
(2004, David O. Russell, USA) [71 out of 100]
Starting out on a high note - specifically a series of fuck*shit obscenities voice-overed by leading man Jason Schwartzman, as the screen slowly goes from blurred out to sharpened in. Schwartzman, sublime star of Rushmore and son of Talia Shire (and in case you were keeping track, nephew of Francis Ford Coppola and cousin to Sofia Coppola and Nicholas Cage) plays Albert Markovski, a neurotic environmental activist enthralled in constant battle with smooth-talking sonofabitch corporate executive, Brad Stand, played with tender viciousness by Jude Law. Albert is attempting, through bad-poetry-as-political-protest, to save the local marshes from being gobbled up by Huckabees, a Wal-Mart-esque department store chain (although the Huckabees logos and ad spots look more like an attack on Target - but hey, aren't they all the same).
-October 22, 2004
It is his constant fighting-the-issues neurosis (and a series of possibly meaningless coincidences) that brings Albert to contact the Existential Detectives, Vivian and Bernard - played with unabandoned merriment by Lily Tomlin and a very Ringo Starr looking Dustin Hoffman. Their assignment is to investigate Albert and try to give him the answers of life, the universe and everything. Toss in a surprisingly entertaining Mark Walberg as Tommy Corn, a firefighter-cum-philospher, the always wonderful Isabelle Huppert as a sexy nihilistic antagonist and a hilariously confused (and sometimes bonnetted) Naomi Watts as the beautiful "face" of Huckabees (who later deconstructs her own corporate image - whispering "fuckabees" into the ear of a Huckabees big-wig VP), and you have one of the most creatively transcendental comedies ever made. Next to only Michael Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, Huckabees is one of the best American comedies of the year (but is Eternal Sunshine even a comedy?).
David O. Russell's I ♥ Huckabees transcends any vain attempt at categorization - instead opting to be about, well...everything (or is it nothing?). Part Charlie Kauffman/Spike Jonze (the maze of stark white hallways as Albert races through, almost catching up with himself) and part Wes and/or P.T. Anderson (a big beautiful surreal cast intertwining in a frantic theatre of the absurd). And although not quite reaching the levels of their best efforts (ie. Being John Malkovich or Magnolia), Russell has still created a film about universal truths (or fictions) that is everything the hideously popular new age fad film, What the Bleep do we Know?! is not.
Multi-layered and smartly written (God I'm sick of all those Farrelly Brothers/American Pie-type movies that inundate the market, attempting to be funny through the use of bodily fluids), Huckabees is what comedy should be. Maybe not always on target, and maybe not always being very cohesive (but that may be the point), but still quite the cerebral coxswain of a film. If you are the type of person that is a slave to the ordinary, then this film is not for you (or maybe it is for you, and your enlightenment), but if you are the type of person for whom Kierkegaard and Woody Allen are more of an influence than Britany Spears or the cast of Survivor, then this film is yours for the taking.