To say I was surprised by this movie would be an understatement. I don’t often go to see anything but the big budget thrillers and horror flicks, but I felt like something a little different. I went to see this last Sunday, and me and my friend were two of only five or six people in the movie theatre, something I'd never experienced before, it was kinda nice. Felt like a private screening. Anyway, the movie.
The story basically opens like this; a married couple, the Jaffes (played by Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) are a pair of 'detectives' who help everyday people with their various existential-crises in their lives. They are hired by chance by a disillusioned activist and (terrible) poet called Albert (Jason Schwartzman), who finds their business card in the coat pocket of Huckabees superstore executive, Brad (Jude Law), who is attempting to take over Albert’s 'Open Spaces Coalition' protest sort of thing, in order to make him and his company look good. The Jaffes figure that Brad is the cause of Albert’s crisis, and to help him out they introduce him to weirdo fireman Tommy (Mark Wahlberg), who blindly believes that the cause of all the world’s problems are due to the use of petroleum. Things get even more confusing when Brad himself hires the detectives after having troubles with girlfriend Dawn (Naomi Watts, looking as glamorous as usual).
By this point, Albert and Tommy give up on the Jaffes, who seem to be making things worse, so they turn to their rival existential crises solver, maniacal French woman Caterine (Isabelle Huppert). From then on things get…odd shall we say.
First off, this movie is very funny. Mark Wahlberg, usually as wooden as a park bench, is great as fire fighter who cycles to house fires as he refuses to ride in the environmentally unfriendly firetruck. Dustin Hoffman is even more fantastic than usual, his goofy hairstyle and willingness to poke fun at himself sold the movie to me in terms of performance. The whole Shania Twain thing is just hilarious, I won’t explain it because you won’t get it unless you watch the movie. Despite this, it still manages to be very philosophical and stimulating, and covers everything from nilhism to the nation’s materialism. It’s very complicated, but thankfully, not in a pretentious way. [SPOILER - highlight to read]: The scene in which Wahlberg and Schwartzman attempt to appreciate life more by whacking each other in the faces with space hoppers is worth an Oscar on its own.
To sum it up, it’s a very difficult movie, one of the most difficult I’ve watched, and I’m not ashamed to say that I didn’t get much of it at first. It’s not the kind of movie you’d want to rent out to kill time, this needs time and attention, but ultimately it's a rewarding and funny story, a real breath of fresh air.
this movie looked very good in trailer a long while back.. however i heard very very bad reviews of it ill still need to check it out. I heard that it had the potential to be great but it seemed like they just really missed the point
comingsoon usually has good reviews because they explain exactly why.. they really hated this movie and i heard from some friends it was weak..
heres some from comingsoon http://www.comingsoon.net/news/reviewsnews.php?id=6581
The Bottom Line:
Considering the wait since Russell's last movie, I Heart Huckabees is a huge letdown. However hard you try to make sense or find depth in all the existential nonsense, "Huckabees" is a silly and pointless exercise that verges on embarrassment for all involved. Lacking the sense of drama and the stirring performances of the movies it tries to imitate (Magnolia, The Royal Tenenbaums), it's left with nothing but a bunch of quirky encounters that has little resonance.
I'd love to know how it was imitating The Royal Tenebaums (which, coincidentially, is one of the most critically overrated movies of the decade). If you read my summary, I think it's pretty obvious that it's a unique story. It may have the same feel as Magnolia, but that can't be a bad thing. Don't agree with that review in the slightest. Silly yes, but pointless..most definitely not. I certainly got something out of it.
New York Times, ReelViews, USA Today, Rolling Stone and Film Focus all gave it very good reviews. It was hit and miss amongst the critics, although the one you have there is the only bad review I've seen as yet. Screw them, go see it for yourself I say.
I left the movies with this face:
the movie was rather...interesting... VERY VERY VERY hard to follow though... [SPOILER - highlight to read]: at the end the french woman with the investigators actually were working 2gether? I usually enjoy strange films but this one was...special... there's no easy way to explain it
It's pretty much a movie about getting people to understand that the philosophical approach of existentialism is the way to live if you want to understand yourself, and how you control your own destiny, given you don't believe in things in life being predetermined. When you apply it to the movie, it's about people who are in desperate need of self-evaluation, who aren't truely happy where they are, and thus hire the couple to break down their problems, and show them how they are the ones responsible for the way they live and die, controlling their own fate. Like DB said, thankfully, it wasn't pretentious, and left it up to the characters, and the viewers. Not heavy-handed.
I, too, was skeptical at first, and while it took a few minutes for me to get into it, given the really bizarre opening sequence, I throughly enjoyed it. There's a 2 disc set floating around which I wanna get my hands on sometime soon. I don't necessarily think it was trying to clone works like "The Royal Tenenbaums", but more so Charlie Kaufman, who we all know is pretty much the greatest screenwriter alive for movies such as this. he would done even better with the movie, IMO, and that's scary.
Last edited by Cory Chaos on Apr 22nd, 2005 at 04:06 AM
Gender: Male Location: Canada (Currently NYC, USA)
It was VERY good. I just watched it tonight. It's something that can be talked about. I love that. It was hilarious and, yet, so deeply philosophical. I need to buy it now.
__________________ Love is an accident waiting to happen. Desire is a stranger you think you know. Intimacy is a lie we tell ourselves. Truth is a game you play to win. If you believe in love at first sight you never stop looking.
i'm absoloutly in love with that movie- i can't wait to see it again b/c i saw it coming home on a plane so it was kinda distracting but i thought it was absoloutly hysterical- plus jude law is uber sexy so that gave it some hottness points
__________________ So don\'t go away. Say what you say. But say that you\'ll stay forever and a day in the time of my life. I need more time just to make things right.
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Dec 7th, 2004 01:58 PM
