I Heart Huckabees

HJ Links
—Review by Elisabeth Leitch
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film pdf file
—Spiritual Connections

Although most of us probably would not admit to it in public, I’d guess that the majority of people actually do have little voices in their heads. Not a million and one different personalities that should send us racing to our nearest psychologist, not even that angel that sits on one shoulder and the devil that sits on the other, but our own voice, inside our own heads, always there, always talking, sometimes about what we are doing, sometimes about something completely different, and more often than not questioning who we are, what we are doing, and why in the world we are doing it.

As the movie I Heart Huckabees begins to roll across the screen, it is that little voice that we hear talking to Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman) and asking those same questions that so often circulate through our own brains—in nutshell—What am I doing? and Does what I’m doing even mean anything or make any difference? And from here, I Heart Huckabees begins, launching into a whirlwind montage of comic scenes and lines as Markovski sets off on a mission to find the meaning of life.

In search of this meaning, Markovski is first joined by existential detectives Bernard Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman) and Vivian Jaffe (Lily Tomlin) whom he hires to decipher a series of coincidences in his life. From there enter Brad Stand (Jude Law), Markovski’s coworker and archenemy; and Dawn Campell (Naomi Watts), Stand’s girlfriend and voice of Huckabees, who also hire Bernard and Vivian to investigate them. Lastly come Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg), a petroleum obsessed client of Bernard and Vivian; and Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert), a Frenchwoman with different views on the existential questions of life. With next to no plot, I Heart Huckabees jumps from there and proceeds to chronicle life as each of these characters explores what defines his or her life, reality, and identity and each one searches for what life’s meaning actually is.

For Markovski and Corn, the reality with which they enter the story is one centered on hopelessness. The reality they seek—one of meaning and purpose. Markovski spends his days trying to save forests and marshes with next to no avail and wonders if several chance encounters with the same man might hold some deeper meaning to his seemingly futile life. Corn obsesses over petroleum consumption, sweatshops, and other global problems and just wishes people would do something about them.

Joining the search for life’s meaning, with their only intention being to mess with Markovski, Stand and Campell begin to question their identities and lives only after Bernard and Vivian’s investigation helps them recognize who they actually are. Listening to himself tell the same celebrity encounter story over and over again, Stand (while having a nervous breakdown) comes to see his life as “putting on a show when inside he’s frowning and drowning� (as Stand said himself in an earlier poem). Reaching a revelation that her identity is based only on her looks, Campell trades in her barely-there clothes worn in Huckabees ads for baggy overalls and a bonnet.

In response to Markovski and Corn’s desire for meaning in life and Stand and Campell’s flawed definitions of their own lives and identities, I Heart Huckabees presents various answers to where the real meaning of life actually lies.

The first “authorities� to enter the story, Bernard and Vivian present the conclusion that the meaning of life is about the connection of all things. As Bernard explains in a highly comical scene, reality is like a blanket: we’re in one spot, someone else is in another, in another spot is the Eiffel tower, and in another a hammer. To find the true meaning of life, one must learn to see the “blanket truth,� a universe where everything is connected, everything has equal meaning, and therefore “everything you could ever want or be you already have or are.�

In direct opposition to Bernard and Vivian, Vauban intrudes into the investigation with her own conclusion—nothing is connected, we are all alone, we are all miserable, and therefore nothing matters. For her, finding meaning in life simply means accepting that the world is hopeless and, instead of trying to do something about it, pretty much doing things to forget about it. With this attitude, Markovski and Corn end up in a scene that involves hitting each other in the face with a large rubber ball that, while hilarious, cannot help but be connected to real life numbing agents such as drugs and alcohol.

While only presented in a brief scene and not quite shown as an authority, a third answer suggested to the meaning of life that Markovski and Corn encounter is religion. While dining with a family, Markovski and Corn tell the family about their investigation. In response, one of the children asks why they don’t just go to church, the mother responds with a statement that some people have additional questions, and the child finishes with a comment that we don’t have to ask those questions. Spiraling into arguments and accusations of hypocrisy, the dinner does not end well and Markovski and Corn make a quick exit.

In the end, I Heart Huckabees has presented a variety of options as to what the meaning of life could be. Instead of presenting one solution as a defining answer, however, the various solutions that have appeared throughout the movie seem to come off as too abstract, too hopeless, too disconnected from reality, too extreme, and/or simply incomplete in one way or another. While each character seems to have grown in small ways, while they all seem to have abandoned lives of complete non-meaning and non-purpose, it seems that even in the answers they have found by the end—we all are connected in suffering, but still, our lives have meaning and there is hope—at least one bigger question still remains: Where do we go from there and why? br>
So, at the end of the hour and forty six minutes, you may ask, is I Heart Huckabees worth seeing? And to that all I can say is, it really depends. As a comedy, I Heart Huckabees is definitely full of quality laughs. Other than one too-weird sex scene in a swamp (which, in my opinion, could have just as well been left out) and a few meditative montages, the comedy is unique, mostly avoids cliché jokes and over-used sexual humor, and has more great one and two liners just waiting to be quoted than I can count. At the same time, however, I repeat that the comedy is unique . . . meaning—although simply seeing the well-known cast play such bizarre roles was enough to make me smile throughout the entire movie, this disconnected story of extreme overacting and situations and jokes that could never fit into any sort of normal world may simply not be what every moviegoer would consider funny or even entertaining.

Beyond its comedy, I Heart Huckabees also has its other pluses and minuses. Between its examinations of the things that define each of the characters and the various ideas presented as the meaning of life, I Heart Huckabees not only touches on many issues that are real in people's lives, but also manages to present pieces of many worldviews, ideologies, and struggles alive in the world today. For viewers who like a logical storyline with growth, development, and resolution, however, this anti-plot story with little real character development and more questions than answers hanging at its ending might be more confusing and possibly depressing than some may care for.

So, do you see it or not? I leave that up to you. But if you do decide to go see I Heart Huckabees or have already seen it, enjoy the comedy, smile at the actors, and have fun listening to that little voice as you toss around the meaning of life inside your own head. As you think about connections and coincidences, ask yourself how we are actually connected. As you think about the things of life that seem hopeless, ask yourself what can actually set you free from your own fears and feelings of hopelessness. As you think about whatever defines you, ask yourself if it is all just an act and if you really are who you are. As you think about whatever provides your life with meaning and explains the things of this world, ask yourself if it is something more than an idea you blindly follow without question or if instead it is something you have questioned, have allowed yourself to face the questions and struggles of the world, and do allow to be something that interacts with life instead of just a belief, a mental assent, that rests inside your head and nowhere else.

As you ask yourself all of these questions and so many more, consider the possibilities given the characters in the movie, the more specific “whats� and even bigger “Why?� that still remain wide open at the movie’s end, and how Mark Wahlberg’s answer to Good Morning America’s question of what he actually believes the meaning of life to be (love, compassion, and forgiveness?all coming back to Jesus) could very well answer all the questions that you ask.

As the little voice in your head asks you what the meaning of your life really is, let it ask, ask it questions in return, and don’t be afraid to actually find the meaning of life.