Product Description

Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin lead an all-star cast including Jude Law, Naomi Watts and Mark Walhberg in this outrageous comedy from director/co-writer David O. Russell (Three Kings). Kindhearted but confused activist Andrew Markovski hires a pair of screwball "existential detectives" (Hoffman and Tomlin) to help him find the meaning of life. All the while, a sexy, French author (Isabelle Huppert) is trying to throw a wrench in their plan by seducing andrew's mind and body.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7871 in DVD
• Brand: TCFHE
• Released on: 2005-02-22
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 107 minutes

Amazon.com
Billed as "an existential comedy," I Heart Huckabees is a flawed yet endearingly audacious screwball romp that dares to ponder life's biggest questions. Much of director David O. Russell's philosophical humor is dense, talky, and impenetrable, leading critic Roger Ebert to observe that "it leaves the viewer out of the loop," and suggesting that Russell's screenplay (written with his assistant, Jeff Baena) is admirably bold yet frustratingly undisciplined. Russell's ideas are big but his expression of them is frenetic, centering on the unlikely pairing of an environmentalist (Jason Schwartzman) and a firefighter (Mark Wahlberg) as they depend on existential detectives (Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman) and a French nihilist (Isabelle Huppert) to make sense of their existential crises, brought on (respectively) by a two-faced chain-store executive (Jude Law) and his spokesmodel girlfriend (Naomi Watts), and the aftermath of 9/11's terrorism. No brief description can do justice to Russell's comedic conceit; you'll either be annoyed and mystified or elated and delighted by this wacky primer for coping with 21st century lunacy. Deserving of its mixed reviews, I Heart Huckabees is an audacious mess, like life itself, and accepting that is the key to enjoying both. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
The single-disc edition of I Heart Huckabees has two commentary tracks: the first is writer-director David O. Russell on his own, providing a more low-key assessment of the film and the Buddhist philosophical endeavors that inspired it; he's not the raving lunatic that Sharon Waxman's scathing 2004 profile in The New York Times would lead you to believe. The second commentary, with Russell and his primary cast, is much more of a party-like romp, strictly optional but entertaining for anyone curious about anecdotes from a production that was apparently a lot of fun. Devoted fans might prefer the abundance of bonus features on the two-disc special edition. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
David O. Russell's new satire is an authentic disaster peppered with many odd and brilliant moments. The characters, skittering along the edges of the frame, speak only about Big Ideas, say everything four times, quarrel at the drop of a non sequitur, and have sex in uncomfortable places. The hero, one Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman), is the head of an open-spaces conservation group, and he makes a deal with a rising young executive (Jude Law) at Huckabees, a superstore chain, to preserve some woods. Yet Albert, a surly little hysteric, feels lost, so he hires two "existential detectives" (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) to find out what's wrong with him. The true existentialist, however, is Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert), a sexy philosophe in a limo who believes that life (as it says on her business card) is "cruelty, manipulation, meaninglessness." She and Albert make love on a log. There's much more, all of it devoted to a quarrel between two philosophical viewpoints-that everything is connected and that everything is separate. Russell embraces both sides-there are messy scenes in which everyone talks at once and saner moments, when the eccentricities of the individual characters stand out. With Mark Wahlberg, who is touching and funny as a fireman with nothing on his mind but petroleum. Jeff Baena worked on the garrulous screenplay with Russell. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

I loved it, but perhaps not for everyone
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, though I could easily imagine while many would not. It follows very much in the footsteps of other major release but out-of-the-mainstream films such as BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, IGGY GOES DOWN, THE ROYAL TENNEBAUMS, and ADAPTATION. Anyone who enjoyed all or any of those films is very likely to like this one as well. Anyone who was put off by any or all of those films is unlikely to like I (HEART) HUCKABEES.

I don't want to provide any details about the story, since I believe that this is a film best enjoyed in a state of relative ignorance as to its plotline. Much of the joy in seeing the film for me was in its constantly surprising me with each twist the story took. I loved having no idea whither or where the narrative would lead, or even if it would find resolution in the end. It did, but it might not have been resolved in a fashion that would please every viewer. Without giving away any plot details, I can say that much of has the familiar feel of those undergraduate days spent contemplating existential philosophy. The ghost of Jean-Paul Sartre haunts the script.

As odd as the script is, it is remarkable that the producers were able to attract such an astonishing array of first rate actors. Though a collection of stars, it is in fact a tremendous ensemble cast, and all of the performers apparently content to be part of an interconnected group. Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin (I wonder if anyone else gets the impression that she has been virtually the same age for forty years) play a married couple who are also professional colleagues in a very unusual detective agency. Jason Schwartzman plays a young environmentalist who becomes their client. Jude Law is an executive with the Huckabees of the film's title (and who wears the same medium blue suit throughout the film). Naomi Watts plays his girlfriend (and official voice of Huckabees) and who is astonishingly beautiful throughout the film, whether adorned in clothing that inevitably resembles a bikini or in baggy overalls and Amish bonnet. Mark Wahlberg probably cannot be made less attractive than he is in this film, though it is also one of his more interesting roles, as a fireman who is like Schwartzman a client of Hoffman and Tomlin. The extraordinary Isabelle Huppert, whose appearances in English language films have been tragically rare, provides a Continental presence as the author of a book that Hoffman and Tomlin perceive as threatening to their activities.

Between the highly original and difficult-to-anticipate script, the excellent direction, and the superb ensemble cast, I found this to be an utterly enjoyable film. I hesitate, however, in giving it a blanket recommendation. While I loved its quirkiness, many more conservative filmgoers could find it a bit too adventurous. I repeat what I first said about this film: if you enjoyed the films mentioned in the first paragraph, you are likely to love this one, but if you found this unpleasant or simply too odd, you might want to avoid this one.

Test Whether You'll Love or Hate this Love It or Hate It Movie
"I Heart Huckabees" is the ultimate love it / hate it movie. Few will say, "I could either go see 'I Heart Huckabees' or whatever else is playing at the multiplex."

Me? I loved "I Heart Huckabees." I loved it so much I can't even review it. I loved every performance, every line of dialogue; I loved it so much I want to form a club with others who loved this movie ... Normally, I can't stand Jason Schwartzman, and even he didn't ruin it for me.

How can you tell which camp you'll fall into? Here's a test. Agree or Disagree with the following statements:

1.) My friends and family tell me I think too much, and that my life would be much easier if I would just relax and not rock the boat.

2.) I've tried meditation, but gotten sidetracked when I found myself imagining taking a machete to people who annoy me.

3.) I could pick Franz Kafka out of a line-up that included Jean Paul Satre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Buster Keaton.

4.) The thought of sex with a nihilist leaves me contemplating nothingness, and yet strangely aroused.

5.) I've always wanted to see Marky Mark bicycle in fireman's knee-high rubber boots, while protesting the world petroleum crisis.

6.) I once lost a girlfriend / boyfriend to someone who was cover-model pretty / handsome, but had no soul, and that, yet again, caused me to think too much, and then to meditate, and then to imagine the whole machete thing.

7.) I think that the objectification of women is shallow and obscene, and Amish bonnets turn me on.

8.) Dustin Hoffman does a faux friendly, "I've got your nuts in my cracker" smile better and better as he ages.

9.) Lily Tomlin is reason enough to see any movie.

10.) Cruely, Manipulation, Meaninglessness.

Give yourself as many points as you want for each "yes" answer, and then give yourself an equal number of points for each "no" answer. Cause, you know? It's all one.

Satire of Therapy and Philosophical Quest Works
The plot of this crazed movie--which is as deranged as Being John Malkovich--is that an earnest young environmentalist-poet Albert Markosvski, afflicted with anxieties and rage, consults an existential spy network to survey his existence in the hope to find clues to his malady and to find Ultimate Truth. During his truth quest, Albert meets other neurotics and misfits, including an angry fireman played with great hilarity by Mark Wahlberg of Boogie Nights fame. The film is an intelligent, complex romp of the earnest quest for truth, therapy, metaphysics, self-aggrandizing posers of all stripes. For the first ten minutes, I wasn't willing to surrender to this movie of ideas but when I realized it was a playful fable, a sort of film version of Voltaire's Candide, I relaxed and let the film's magic sweep me away. For fans of the aforementioned Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there is a strong probablity that you will love this film.