I Heart Huckabees
Written by John Rozewicki   
Thursday, 03 August 2006

A Strange Film

I <3 Huckabees is a strange and beautiful experience. The first time you watch it you might feel a little uneasy, or out of control. It's not a movie for the masses. Not often is there a movie that requires a short primer on existentialist philosophy to understand the comedy.

An Honest Film

I <3 Huckabees is an honest comedy movie. There aren't really any punch lines, and there are definitely not pauses for laughter. It's a tough movie to watch for the first time, because it's difficult to know where to feel confident in laughing. In many comedies the dramatic elements are pitted against the comedic elements as if they're on opposite ends of a spectrum. Movies like I <3 Huckabees show that this simply isn't true.

Why You Can Laugh

I think the magical part is that you really grow to love each of the characters in their own way. Dustin Hoffman is a very likeable cute older man who has a lot of wisdom. Lily Tomlin is a more harsh and overbearing version of the Dustin Hoffman character. Jason Schwartzman plays an abrasive environmentalist that is very similar to, but less over the top than Mark Wahlberg's character. Jude Law is the vacant salesman. The movie really shines on the second viewing because you know the characters, and you feel comfortable laughing at Tommy yelling that people who drive SUV's are murderers even though it might seem like a serious situation.

Divisive Quirkiness

I <3 Huckabees is a quirky movie. It falls right in line with Wes Anderson movies like The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic. It takes serious situations and tweaks them to give a sense of hyper-realism and absurdity. I've noticed that the people who have seen movies done in this style break down into two camps. The one camp becomes distracted by some of the quirkier things in the movie, and so discounts it as being completely unreal; the costumes in The Royal Tenenbaums and the fact that existentialist detectives don't actually exist in the case of I <3 Huckabees. The other camp believes that all the quirks serve to make the movie feel closer to reality than most other movies they have seen. I am in this other camp. I think that the people who take issue with the the subtle comedic elements in I <3 Huckabees have succumbed to a Hollywood tradition similar to the 24 frames per second phenomenon*.

Conclusion

I <3 Huckabees is a magical movie that is ridiculously hard to explain to someone that hasn't seen it. There's something beautiful about the experience of watching it that is difficult to pinpoint. When it's over you feel like you've learned a little bit more about the fundamental mysteries of the world. If you have liked movies done by Wes Anderson then you will most certainly like I <3 Huckabees.
*Audiences are used to film running at 24 frames per second. When audiences are shown film running at 60 frames per second they perceive it to of be lower quality even though it is actually of a higher quality than the more traditional 24 frames per second.
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