September 11, 2004

Where do you put your heart if you are wearing a sleeveless shirt?

Do you really have to have heart if you are the damned Yankees?

What exactly is the heart hunting and why can't it find a few friends with fluorescent jackets?

None of these questions are asked or answered in David O. Russell's new film, I Heart Huckabees. But there are too many other obvious clichés with which to start this review, so…

Russell's fourth film is a combination of Robert Altman and Richard Lester… in all the worst ways. Russell is a very, very smart man. You can see it in the work. You can see it in this work. But sometimes, you can be so smart that you end up being dumb. I Heart Huckabees is an unstructured, simplistic, endlessly self-aware mess.

There is not a bad performance in the lot. Lily Tomlin as an aging tall girl with great legs and a brain that can outthink almost anyone is right there. Dustin Hoffman, ready to play the supporting imp with the comedy hair is right there. Jude Law doesn't miss a note, though his exceedingly good looks and his ability to blend into the background, which he does, reminds us why he will never be the movie superstar that he always seems destined to be. Naomi Watts gives another selfless performance, this time highlighting her crotch, as she swings about in skin-tight hot pants, and eventually a mouthful of Oreos or dirt or some such I'm-not-pretty-now-am-I distraction. (She's still lovely in her stupid hat and any man who wasn't prettier than her would see that.) Jason Schwartzman is at the center of this movie and he does a solid job, looking more adult than in the past, yet still mired in childishness thanks to a cooler-than-thou haircut. And perhaps the biggest surprise is that Mark Wahlberg hits every note he is given as well as any of the more respected actors in the group. (Entourage, indeed.)

But all of it goes for naught. We get A Wedding instead of Nashville… or even Popeye… combined with the worst of Lester's love-me-darling slapstick. (If Richard Pryor was just a little less sick, you can be sure he would have turned up in a wheelchair as another clever comedy icon instead of as the genius that he has been.)

Don't get me wrong. There are a half dozen good laughs in I Heart Huckabees. This crew is made up of some of the best comic talent in the business. But if you think that claiming existential status will get a disconnected hodgepodge up to quality status, you are sadly mistaken. I'll eyeball Huckabees again when it turns up on cable or is sent for awards consideration. But not from start to finish. There is no need. A 15 minutes "Greatest Hits" reel would do the job right now.

I would try to recount the story to you, but there is little point. The conceit is that this is so intricate and circular a tale that it is a self-contained universe whose internal logic makes brilliant sense. But the premise is too simple, really. Four characters are utterly connected. They circle one another is seemingly disconnected ways until the existential detectives, really serving as the narrating eye of God, see the connections as we as an audience do. But none of the connections carry any real significance.

But the real David O. Russell… you know, the one who came up with wild ideas, but knew how to keep them earthbound… was far more rigorous with himself. For example, Schwartzman comes upon the existential detectives because he finds their card in a borrowed dinner jacket at a high brow restaurant. But do we ever believe that there are existential detectives? No. Does it read like a punch line every time? Yes. Why the unreality? What if Schwartzman went to real detectives with an existential problem? With those sane detectives, who are forced to face their own issues in pursuit of this case, the audience would have some reality and even more importantly, a couple of characters to tether us to earth in the film.

I am not averse to absurdist comedy. And there are critics who will put a bear hug of love on this film because they are passionate about it. But it doesn't have, ironically, the clarity that makes another Fox Searchlight absurdist comedy, Napoleon Dynamite, far more enjoyable. The most grounded character in the film is Mark Wahlberg's fireman and even in his case, when a good relationship thing happens to him, the audience just doesn't care. We like him. But with no cause and effect, with no call and response, with no need fulfilled, it's just another punchline.

Hearty har har.

E ME: How much huck could a heartchuck chuck, if a heartchuck could chuck huck?