I ♥ Huckabees (2004)

You won't be disappointed!

Load of rubbish!!

A different way of telling a story

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Some people aren't ready to have their questions answered (assuming they have at least started asking coherent questions.) This movie doesn't answer anything so feel free to not take it seriously. Laugh with the absurdity if you can. Carry on tomorrow regaining a desire to disconnect just long enough to not be embarrassed to ask, even if the only question you can muster is "wtf?"

It had been ten years since I'd seen Huckabees and while the film hasn't changed my reaction to it certainly has. When I first saw the film I loved it. I loved how the message of the film was fairly simple but all the distracting double speak and psycho-babble made the film feel aloof and unapproachable. I was in my mid-twenties and I guess I was attracted to aloof and unapproachable. Now those same qualities in this particular context are somewhat annoying and feel pretentious for the sake of being pretentious. Not that this is bad movie by any stretch of the imagination but rather a movie made for a younger man by a younger man.Albert (Schwartzman) is having an existential crisis and hires a pair of existential detectives (Hoffman and Tomlin) to solve a coincidence. The detectives decide to pair up Albert with his "other" Tommy (Whalberg), to help him with his case. Tommy is a militant environmentalist/firefighter who plays a perfect contrast to Albert.The film has moments that are laugh out loud funny to why the hell would they do that disturbing. Most of the humor comes from how painful unaware the characters are of how they sound or appear and Mark Whalberg is especially gifted at saying imbecilic statements with pure conviction. I had forgotten how great he was in this movie. Most of the performances have a bit of a wink to them but not Whalberg, he plays the role completely straight and in turn steals scene after scene.The film tells us that it is about nothingness vs meaning and the struggle between the two. Is everything connected and meaningful or is existence just chaos with no connections or meaning? This can be a frustrating subject to turn around in your mind while you explore your own existence and watching a film maker struggle with the same questions is twice as frustrating.The moments of levity make the film easy to watch but the subject matter and tone didn't quite match up for me. With that being said I admire O Russell for making this film. It took guts to make such a unique film. While the film didn't hold up the way I expected I'm certainly glad it exists. I'm glad that I live in a world where thoughtful 20 somethings can discover this film and start to ask themselves the important questions. www.followingfilms.com

There may be no other movie that better illustrates the absurd by being absurd. Dustin Hoffman as existential detective Bernard is classic, spewing utter nonsense that often sounds reasonable, but ultimately doesn't mean anything at all. Like my summary quote - in trying to analyze it, the line seems to be a profound comment on the absolute nature of mathematics. On the flip side, so what?The most distracting thing about this movie is that one is always a few moments behind the events occurring on screen contemplating what was said a mere few seconds ago. The dialog by Hoffman and Lily Tomlin doesn't allow you to come up for air most of the time, because you're either stymied or laughing hysterically at the nonsense. My point is not to make fun of existentialism, the movie does that well enough by itself. It skewers those deep thinkers who think they can come up with the secrets to the mystery of life in a neat, compact little package. Personally, I went through my own existentialist period while transitioning from high school to college, and it was as confusing a time for me as this picture.So forgive me for making this a short review. I'm going to transcend space and time here for a couple of minutes and get my bearings before I take a walk up to the lake and watch the sun set. Then maybe, just maybe, I'll watch this movie again.

First I'll say, so you can relate/hate my mind, I've turned a few movies into memory-wheel-building-blocks for this life...Amélie, Big Lebowski, Big Fish, Earthlings.But out of that list, I would still rather watch this movie. I've read some hate it because it's preaching to the choir, being strange on purpose, leaning on the fact it's fictional and amazingly enough, some even say it's not funny.Some films/music/writings/art grown on you. Some you liked at first and somehow IT STILL DID THIS. That is this film for me.It's my Velvet and Underground and Nico, and if you don't hear the comedy/tragedy in that album, I'm guessing you won't hear it here either.