I Heart Huckabees

I Heart Huckabees is an extraordinarily chatty and whimsically intellectual-comedic satire on the theme of “being” in a consumerist society. It is a patchwork of ideas that do not fit together and dissipate into nothingness. A panopticon of cartoonish characters that enables an endearing exhibition of the actors involved. A frantic sequence of needlessly cryptic scenes, which gives the hopped-up director/narrator a chance to go nuts. But through most of the runtime, he loses sight of the fact that movies are for viewers. He should be hit in the face with a ball and screamed at: “There’s glass between us!” (28/09/2005)

If this is how consumerist California envisions a European-style auteur arthouse cinema, then God help us. An unbelievably hackneyed farce, with an opaque plot that it’s unable to draw the viewer into the action. Comparisons with Kaufman are completely out of place, because unlike this mess, Kaufman doesn't lack clarity (although it may not seem so at first glance), wit and a sense of punchline. The most interesting part of the whole film was a completely unrelated discussion with my friend about Cronenberg, after we lost interest in the film after about 70 minutes of watching it. PS: Mind you, I'm a Russell fan and I love his Three Kings. (17/03/2006)