I Heart Huckabees

Director David O. Russell has made one of the year’s strangest films with this existential comedy about an environmentalist’s (Jason Schwartzman) quest to find out the meaning of a coincidence in his life. To do this, he hires existential detectives to spy on him and find out how this coincidence ties into his life and why. Schwartzman is terrific (cast him as Keith Moon now!), as is Mark Wahlberg as a frustrated fireman who refuses to ride on the fire truck due to his anger over the evils of petroleum usage. The movie also features Naomi Watts, eccentric and eye-popping in a variety of costumes that I personally thank O. Russell for including. Jude Law is perfectly evil as a corporate executive at Huckabees, sort of a take off on Wal-Mart. Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin both have great moments as the existential detectives, probably the weirdest roles of their prestigious careers. In a way, this is O Russell’s weakest film, not really a criticism when considering that his other pictures consist of masterpieces Flirting with Disaster and Three Kings.