"How am I not myself?"
I’d hate to think that I’m the only who randomly stops and becomes self aware. By self aware I mean that I realize that I exist in a world consisting of six billion people. For that slight moment I begin to question my existence, and my role in the big picture. Of course, after that moment, I continue on with my life, but for that fleeting instance I’m scared of the machinations that run our lives simply because I don’t know what’s really going on. To calm this issue, many seek out God or religious texts, but some dig further for their existential questions: they seek out philosophy. Sometimes words of wisdom are the best way to put our lives in perspectives, or at least try to. This is the basic premise to today’s film “I Heart Huckabees”.
The film revolves around Albert Markovski (Jason Schwarztman), an environmentalist leading a group, the ‘Open Spaces Coalition’, against a department store from being built on a marsh. The opposition to Albert is Brad Strand (Jude Law),a power executive from Huckabees, the chain that Albert is trying to stop. Like a snake in the grass, Brad uses the public outrage against his company to weasel into Albert’s team of environmentalist. Instead of fighting them, Brad uses his charisma to overtake Albert as leader and pushes the group in the direction of letting Huckabees make their massive store. Feeling displaced from the world, Albert makes pitiful attempts to sway the people in his favor, but it’s all for nothing. Coupled with Albert’s expulsion from his faction are the continuous encounters he has with a tall, Sudanese man. Not sure what to make of his failure as a leader, and his encounter with the Sudanese stranger, Albert seeks help from Bernard and Vivian Joffe (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin), existential detectives. As a means to understand Albert’s existential funk, the Joffe’s follow him around and take note of all the intimate moments that make up Albert’s life. They stress to Albert that in life, everyone is connected through pain, happiness, etc. We are one in the same. To further envelop Albert in to their investigative practices, the Joffes introduce him to one of their most important clients, Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg), a manic firefighter with a keen interest in petroleum.
Tommy and Albert strike up a brotherly relationship, and in effort to expose Albert to the ‘sad truth’, Tommy introduces Albert to the Joffe’s philosophical enemy: Catherine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert). Catherine is quite the opposite of the Joffe’s as she holds the notion that life is a sad existence, and inevitably no one is connected. There is nothing but empty spaces, a point that Catherine exacerbates hilariously by having Tommy and Albert hit each other in the face with a rubber ball. From this point on, Albert finds himself in a philosophical mind field as he works from theory to theory trying to grasp onto the ideals that best represent his life, while still trying to get revenge against Brad for screwing him over. Now, the film itself is rather unfocused in it’s attempt to tell a story about a life crisis, at least in a narrative structure. As a matter of fact, it just seems to hum along aimlessly, but there is a madcap sense of unpredictability in the film that is infectious. This is not to say that writer/director David O’Russell just throws random shit up on the screen, but the film doesn’t particularly have an even flow. Nonetheless, having a script that is broad as hell allows for the actors to let loose and accentuate their performances with a larger than life attitude.
From Jason Schwartzman’s over the top hipster persona to Jude Law’s smarmy knock at corporate fare, “I Heart Huckabees” is brimming over with vivacious characters that install the film with hilarious and endearing quirks. The most colorful character of the bunch is Wahlberg’s Tommy Corn. As Tommy, Wahlberg ferociously steals scene after scene with his wide eyed energy. Making all of the character’s behavior far more enjoyable is the philosophical laden conversations that fill the auditory void. At once pretentious and funny, the film’s dialogue goes round and round, at times with no destination in sight. Some of the dialogue is extremely poignant, some of it’s nonsensical, and the rest of it is a parody on the self importance that many philosophers hold their words to be. I know a lot of people get tripped up in the dialogue because it’s delivered at a rapid pace, but I assure you that with some patience and concentration, the film won’t leave you behind.
For as trying as the dialogue can be, and for as bold as these characters are, David O’Russell also knows when to reign his film in to deliver a great scene. He turns down the dialogue and mutes the characters eccentricities just enough to expose each character’s wandering heart and soul. They’re not overly dramatic moments by any stretch of the imagination, but O’Russell gives each one a moment of existential realization that is funny and poignant. Some of the moments don’t come nearly as easy because of the built up absurdity in a few of the characters, but for characters like Brad and Albert, their moments make the film’s frustrating bits worth waiting for. The same can be said about the movie on the whole. It has some challenging moments, but the fun and the charm that pulsate through the film are hard to resist, even if the film itself feels just as aimless as its characters.
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