I HEART HUCKABEES Review: Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Naomi Watts d: David O. Russell

I Heart Huckabees (2004)

Director: David O. Russell

Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Huppert, Jude Law, Lily Tomlin, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts, Tippi Hedren, Talia Shire

Screenplay: David O. Russell and Jeff Baena

Naomi Watts, Mark Wahlberg, Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman, Jude Law, I Heart Huckabees

Beginning with Spanking the Monkey (not a film about animal abuse), David O. Russell has made a reputation as a director of quirky comedies. I Heart Huckabees is no exception. Not that the comedy works — the film, which should have been called "Spanking the Nietzche," is as funny as a funeral mass. But in this age of formulaic filmmaking, I was flabbergasted that an American movie distributed by a major Hollywood studio (20th Century Fox's subsidiary Fox Searchlight) could be so abrasively unconventional both in form and content.

The storyline — if the film's meandering thread can be called that — follows Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman), a mediocre poet and radical environmentalist who hires two "existential" private eyes (Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman) in order to discover the meaning of his three chance encounters with an African man.

While being tailed around by the metaphysical gumshoes, the neurotic Albert becomes entangled with the yuppie Brad Stand (Jude Law), a (purportedly) pro-environment executive at Huckabee, a giant retail chain whose leaders want to raze an area of forests and marshlands to build one more Huckabee megastore.

As if that wasn't enough, enter fellow neurotics Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg), a disillusioned fireman who refuses to consume any sort of petroleum derivative, and Catherine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert), a total nihilist who has unexpectedly arrived from Paris to prove that life is all about loneliness and misery.

Russell's films have been at least intermittently funny before and the director has elicited several good performances from past cast members — Mary Tyler Moore's hilarious turn in Flirting with Disaster comes to mind. Unfortunately, he doesn't succeed on either count here. Perhaps Russell thought that the film's premise would be so hysterical that he would just kick back, let the cameras roll, and allow everything and everyone to get out of control.

As a result, nearly everyone flounders in this pseudo-existential mess. Jason Schwartzman is insufferable, the talented Naomi Watts is an embarrassment to watch, while an unfunny Lily Tomlin just goes through the motions. Dustin Hoffman (barely) manages to stay afloat, but it's only Mark Wahlberg's neurotic fireman that managed to get a few chuckles.

Isabelle Huppert's presence in this American film remained a mystery until her kinky sex moment next to a mud puddle. Then it all became clear. Or it could be that the free-spirited Huppert gets a kick out of crossing the Atlantic every few years to appear in a dismal Hollywood film, e.g., Heaven's Gate, The Bedroom Window. If so, she couldn't have made a better choice not to showcase her considerable talents.

It's true that an unusual theme will quite likely result in an unusual movie — but doesn't necessarily mean a good one. For the unusual to work, it must have depth. I Heart Huckabees is as profound as Huppert's aphrodisiac mud puddle. Minus the aphrodisiac properties.

Addendum: Perhaps the explanation for Tomlin's uninspired performance can be found in the I Heart Huckabees outtakes. It's too bad those are no longer available online. Also: the David O. Russell/Lily Tomlin on-set blowup parody with Paul Rudd and Michael Showalter is infinitely funnier than anything found in I Heart Huckabees.