I (Heart) Huckabees

Too strenuously zany to achieve either emotional or intellectual traction, David O. Russell’s fourth film is frequently funny and occasionally profound, but doesn’t add up to much, despite a stellar cast gamely trying to put over his chaotic but energetic conception. I’ve never really warmed to Jason Schwartzman and was unengaged with his plight as a incompetent conservationist and worse poet, but slightly amused at his real mother, Talia Shire, playing his mother. He goes to Jaffe and Jaffe, Existential Detectives (Dustin Hoffmann and Lily Tomlin acting dutifully wacky) to sort himself out, and falls in with another client of theirs, Mark Wahlberg, a fireman searching for meaning and deploring petroleum after 9/11. Jason’s antagonist is the cheerful corporate shill Jude Law, whose girlfriend Naomi Watts is the limber and perky spokesbody for Huckabees, a Wal-Mart-like chain of superstores. And oh yes, Isabelle Huppert is the nasty French counterpart to the Jaffes, her version of existentialism stressing meaningless rather than the blanketing connectedness they espouse. There’s some jazzy special effects as the film swings through Charlie Kaufman territory, but the relentlessly perky music rings tinny after a while. Russell is one of my favorite young directors, a "10 Under 50" choice, and I wanted to like his latest, but have to file it under “honorable failure.” (2004, dvd, n.) *6-* (MC-55, RT-59.)