The makers of the new movie I Heart Huckabees describe their work as
“an existential comedy.” Apparently, that translates as a film that pretends to
examine something like the meaning of life and the structure of the universe,
with laughs thrown in.
The picture, which features a well
known and mostly distinguished cast, occasionally provides some moments of
humor, and its characters frequently discuss some questions of existence and
reality. That combination presumably fulfills the promise of the subtitle,
though the depth and importance of the action and dialogue remain open to
question.
The protagonist, Albert Markovski
(Jason Schwartzman) heads a group of environmental activists intent on saving
some unspoiled areas from the encroachments of suburban sprawl. The chief enemy
of his organization, Huckabees, some sort of megastore, plans to develop yet
another shopping mall, which will of course despoil the usual
meadow/marshland/forest. Markovski and his cohorts organize demonstrations —
his protests generally take the form of reading his own bad poetry — against
the project, which furnishes the excuse for a more or less generalized conflict
in the film.
The real plot, if that term truly
applies, involves Markovski’s personal dilemmas, his perfectly understandable
feelings of failure and inconsequentiality, and his puzzlement about certain
events in his life. To solve the question of a recurring coincidence in various
contexts of his daily activities, he consults a firm of private detectives, a
husband-wife team, Bernard and Vivian (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin), who
call themselves existential detectives. The detectives lecture their confused
client about the interrelationship of all events and objects in the universe
and promise to solve his problems in understanding those connections.
To flesh out the general silliness,
the script brings in an assortment of other people, most of them oddballs and
eccentrics like Markovski, Bernard, and Vivian. Jude Law, for example, plays
Brad Stand, a high-ranking employee of Huckabees, who works as a sort of double
agent with Schwartzman’s environmental coalition, undermining the efforts at
preservation while furthering the construction plan. Brad also participates in
a remarkably silly romantic subplot involving the Huckabees Girl, a model named
Dawn Campbell (Naomi Watts).
Perhaps reflecting the existential
detectives’ belief in connections, Mark Wahlberg plays a dreamy fireman who
shares some of the environmentalists’ concerns. Believing that petroleum is the
source of all evil, he renounces the internal combustion engine and refuses to
ride on the truck, choosing instead to bicycle to fires. He also provides both
a dramatic and an existential connection, ending up with Naomi Watts and
introducing Markovski to the work of a French anti-existentialist philosopher,
Caterine, played by Isabelle Huppert.
Most of the actual plot of the film
consists of quantities of silly nonsense accompanied by a good deal of sheer
blather. Hoffman and Tomlin shadow Schwartzman and a few other people, popping
up at a number of inopportune moments, snapping embarrassing pictures, and
intermittently continuing their discussions of existentialism. Law and Watts
bicker meaninglessly, and the French philosopher stalks the confused
poet-environmentalist, attempting to negate the ideas of the detectives with
her own brand of nihilism, preaching, “cruelty, manipulation, and
meaninglessness.”
Despite the filmmakers’ apparent
intention to make something like an absurdist comedy of ideas, occasionally
displaying a passing familiarity with some academic texts and philosophical
positions, the picture constantly strays into mere pretentiousness.
Its comedy, on the other hand,
rapidly grows ever more laborious, betraying an agonized and almost entirely
unsuccessful effort to be funny. The constant introduction of new characters
and additional discussions of beliefs and values suggests a desperate attempt
to flesh out a thin and ludicrous premise.
The cast quite accurately reflects
the failure of the picture’s conception, mostly overacting directly at the
camera or delivering long swatches of dialogue in the manner of a memorized
speech. The alleged star, Jason Schwartzman, continues to demonstrate a
spectacular lack of appeal, and his scenes with Mark Wahlberg achieve a rare
level of embarrassment in style and content.
Both Hoffman and Tomlin — what are
they doing here anyway? — at least seem funny now and then. They speak their
lines with the sort of conviction and seriousness that comedy requires.
Aside from a moment or two of actual
humor, and some valid citations of real texts and sources, I Heart Huckabees looks like a self-indulgent exercise for the
writer-director, David O. Russell. How he managed to obtain backing for the
picture and the presence of some big, expensive names may constitute a more
intellectually challenging question than an exploration of existential comedy.
Huckabees,
however, must be the first (and probably the last) movie to cite Hermes
Trismegistus, a figure from antiquity who probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the
notion of Dustin Hoffman taking his name in vain.
I Heart Huckabees(R), starring Jason Schwartzman, Jude
Law, Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Naomi Watts, Isabelle Huppert, Mark Wahlberg;
written by David O. Russell and Jeff Baena; directed by David O. Russell.
Little Theatre, Pittsford Plaza
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 2, 2004.
