I Heart Huckabees (2004)

dir. David O. Russell
writ. David O. Russell & Jeff Baena
feat. Jason Schwartzman, Mark Wahlberg, Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Jude Law, Naomi Watts, Isabelle Huppert

I Heart Huckabees dares to take on big questions about the meaning of life and the definition of existence in a comedic film while slyly avoiding committing to any answers, toying with the characters and the audience, feigning engagement in an honest search for ultimate meaning while pointing out in the process that there are no answers. It brilliantly pokes fun at opposing camps, those believing that everything is connected and those that insist everything is meaningless. And all the while the film never stops moving, maintaining a breakneck pace that echoes the speed of life, illustrating that there is never the time to stop and figure it all out.

The performances are impressive. Hoffman and Tomlin brilliantly playing antagonistic spouses and fellow detectives, easily shifting from adamant opposition to one another's current viewpoint to lusty interludes, both agitated and attracted by their contradictions. Schwartzman could be the grown up version of his character from Rushmore, still ambitious and well-meaning, but with greater doubts about the world. Wahlberg works perfectly as the doltish fireman whose eyes have suddenly been opened to worlds of thought he never knew existed, eager to pick them up and twirl them around, quick to believe and also quick to change track. Law effortlessly slips into the smooth talking corporate prick role, pretending to care but more concerned about his own image and keeping on the fast track. Watts works wonderfully as his partner and the face of Huckabees, the corporate behemoth ala WalMart. Law and Watts are both ripe for disruption, Watts much more so as she seems flimsy in the intellectual deparment, a natural match for Wahlberg. Watts flopping around in her bonnet and apron is one of the funniest bits of physical comedy I've ever witnessed in a film, truly outrageous, a wild twist on fashion and marketing.

As there are no answers, the film contradicts itself repeatedly. In one terrific scene, Schwartzman and Wahlberg eat dinner with a good Christian family where the conversation explodes into a philosophical battle illustrating how those with strongly held and strongly differing views are incapable of open, thoughtful communication about these ideals. It's a pointed scene, easily taken as a jab against a modern Republican ethic by which a charitable deed makes up for all the other cumulative wrongdoing wrought around the world in the name of freedom and democracy, though it's more complicated than that, also showing an unwillingness in both groups to accept and consider challenges to their own ideas. No other scene in the film so succinctly demonstrates the impossibility of universal truth, of a single unifying belief system that will work for all. It's the beauty of the film and of life, and it all comes with a laugh.