It's been a couple of weeks since my last review/movie-viewing experience, and that is due in no small part to the fact that the Grand Rapids Civic Theater opened the Sound of Music, which I am stage managing, this past week. Please go see it, if you're in the area. It's wonderful on stage as much as it is wonderful on film. And I'm not just saying it because I'm involved. We have a fine cast, and the Civic is a lovely theater.
Anyway. As such, stage managing and opening week left me little time for things like eating, sleeping, watching movies, breathing. It was a struggle to keep my head on straight. When all was said and done, though, I had this movie waiting for me to relax with come Sunday evening, from the all wonderful, no-pressure Netflix. From Rushmore with Jason Schwartzman, the magic queue led me to I Heart Huckabees with Jason Schwartzman. Naturally.
Considering the plot outline, I thought this film would be an instant classic in my estimation. What's not to "heart" about the premise?
Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman play married existential detectives Bernard and Vivian Jaffe. Mr. Schwartzman plays Albert Markovski a spastic environmental activist competing for a coalition with Huckabee Corporation with an up-and-comer from the local branch, Brad Stand (Jude Law). Albert becomes obsessed with the ultimately meaningless (or was it?) coincidence of seeing an African doorman in several places and decides to seek the services of the Jaffes. Naturally, the kooky couple lead Albert through a philosophical roundabout that shows him that the coincidence has nothing to do with his present collection of neuroses, mostly involving Brad and his disappointing childhood, in the meanwhile advocating a universal connection existentialist viewpoint. Of course, the odd tete a tete leads Brad to seek the Jaffe's services as a ruse to rattle Albert until Brad's girlfriend Dawn, the model mascot of the Huckabees Corporation, also gets caught up in the fray. Oh, and somehow Mark Wahlberg fits in as Tommy, another patron of the Jaffes who gets caught up with their French rival and former student, an advocate of the separation and nothingness side of existentialism, and leads Albert through a circular philosophical exploration in visual form.
I do not deny that the concept behind this film is original and the dialogue unerringly complex and intelligent. I had three huge problems with this film, though. First, I felt the film got mired in its subject matter, which is admittedly complex, though director and screenwriter David O. Russell attempted to distill the topic into something more black and white than it really is. Operating on that premise, I felt that the film itself was a fruitless exercise, and if there was any humor to it that I was supposed to find, it was buried by the round-and-round ramblings of each character as s/he struggled with basic tenets of causality, connection, and human nature. The struggle and ramblings, by themselves, were not offensive. Halfway through the movie, though, I was bored, and none of the absurd situations that Albert and company continually found (or put) themselves in could cure me of my disinterest.
Second, and another root cause for my boredom, I couldn't help feeling that the film smacked of its own self-importance. There was a certain pomposity to it, as if the filmmakers knew they had an intelligent movie on their hands but seemed determined to club the viewer over the head with the concept, no matter how ineffectual the execution of said concept.
Which brings me to number three: I think what this film sorely lacked was any true foundation of story and character development that would have made the intelligent, original concept remotely enticing to me. Truthfully, I didn't give a lick what happened to any of the characters, particularly Albert, because no one involved in the storytelling bothered to give me a reason why I should. All of the characters were merely two-dimensional pawns on a grand chessboard used by the filmmaker to sort out his own existential ramblings without arriving at a satisfying conclusion or answer. Not to say that an answer could ever really be reached because that would presume that the answer even exists. Existentially, naturally. The story meandered quite a bit, also, and while I never felt lost or unable to grasp what was happening, I also stopped wanting to follow it.
That's not to say that there weren't parts of the film that I truly enjoyed. Mr. Hoffman and Ms. Tomlin were, by far, the biggest joys to watch, well-matched and perfect in the roles of the unusual detectives. Every performer handled the material well, though the material was flawed at its core, and Mr. Schwartzman played Albert with some believability. Some of the visual tricks randomly sprinkled throughout the movie by Mr. Russell were artistically interesting, especially the visual representations of the connectivity of the universe, for which Mr. Jaffe was the biggest proponent.
I also liked the gentle satire masking the larger philosphical argument. Setting the why and how against the backdrop of corporate maneuvering versus environmental zealots was a stroke of genius in its own right. It's unfortunate that the film tripped over its considerably large shoes with the steps and direction it ultimately traveled.
The rating came to me much faster for this film than for other films I've watched lately. In my mind, this is a definite 7: shaky, with flaws, but it still left me feeling somewhat entertained. I laughed sincerely in some parts (and uncomfortably in others). It does not, however, pass the test. I wasn't entertained enough to watch this movie again. I love the absurd, and I love philosophy in film, but I did not heart Huckabees as much as I'd hoped. I guess it's time to get out the ball of pain.