I Heart Huckabees (2004) starring Jason Schwartzman, Isabelle Huppert, Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts directed by David O. Russell Movie Review

I Heart Huckabees (2004)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Jason Schwartzman in I Heart Huckabees (2004)

No Heart Here

"I Heart Huckabees" is a well made movie with an array of good performances but beyond that it is up its own arse. I'm sorry but here is a movie which is trying to be clever and deep about one's purpose in life and that time of soul searching after something big rocks your world. But it isn't clever or deep it just comes across as quirky and smug, revelling in its own pseudo intelligence. So if you can't guess I didn't heart "I Heart Huckabees" but persevered to the end in the hope that maybe there would be some amazing revelation about our purpose which would rock my world or great moment of humour to make it worth the while.

After coming across the same tall African man three times Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman - Slackers) believes that there is some deeper meaning to this coincidence and hires existentialist detectives Bernard (Dustin Hoffman - Finding Neverland) and Vivian (Lily Tomlin - The Kid) to unravel the mystery of this coincidence and his life. There way of doing so is to show Albert that everything is the same and by spying on his everyday life.

Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin in I Heart Huckabees (2004)

To be honest within minutes of "I Heart Huckabees" starting I knew that I wasn't going to like the movie because it had that sense of smug quirkiness going on. In other words instead of delivering normal humour it delivered what I refer to as random pretentious humour which some people tend to love but at the same time alienates a large number of people. And that is what you get through out the movie pretentious random humour which thinks it is being clever but comes across as up it self.

The annoying thing is that whilst that "I Heart Huckabees" is a lot of pretentious nonsense it is a well put together movie. Visually it has nice production values and some amusing effects whilst also featuring a selection of enjoyable performance. Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin make for an amusing and quirky double act whilst Jason Schwartzman isn't as annoying as he can be.

What this all boils down to in this short review because I don't want to waste anymore time on this movie is that "I Heart Huckabees" is a movie which thinks it is clever but only comes across as pretentious. If it wasn't for the fact it has good performances and decent production values it would have been completely unwatchable.


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