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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

I heart Huckabees

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04:41 / 15.01.05

I had a strange, nervous feeling about this movie, even though I think Russell's early films are interesting, and that THREE KINGS was so ridiculously awesome it was probably my favourite film that year. And watching HUCKABEES, and, yeah, laughing a few times, and not bored exactly, but...

...my nervous feeling was right. I was genuinely unconvinced by this film. I thought that all those criticisms often leveled against the Coen Brothers and Wes Anderson - that they're cold, unfeeling filmmakers, concerned only with style and empty emotional gestures - well, those criticisms are all true when applied to HUCKABEES.

Of course, it also has the built-in defence I've already seen articulated in a couple of reviews that if you didn't like it, you "didn't get it." So... um... touche.

Brigade du jour

22:34 / 15.01.05

Oh I think that whole 'you didn't get it' thing isn't so much a defence of a film's limited appeal as an excuse. I mean, it's always going to be retro-active because how do you know someone will 'get' your film until they've already seen it? QED.

Um ... was that bollocks?

Anyway, I liked that you mentioned Three Kings, makingbombs, because now I think about it, Huckabees seems, to me at least, like it's been made by an entirely different filmmaker. I don't know how much of that is down to different collaborators, studio interference, or just plain old 'growing as an artist' but hey let's not get bogged down too much in auteur theory.

The film just seems more like an idealised 'wacky americana' thing, the more I think about it. Hmm maybe I should see it again. Clever aren't they, these people who make films so debatable you have to see them more than once?

15:28 / 13.03.05

I thought it was okay. The biggest problem is that it is a very lightweight throwaway (and quite funny) film that is likely to be picked over for years to come because of its supposed insights, and it will suffer for that.

I saw this last night, and not totally sure how I feel about it, though the above quote comes close. I also tend to agree with the "waste of a cast" sentiment - except that waste is too strong a word. It's like I was this close to really liking the movie, but just as close to completely disliking it - and I think that's the fault of the director not knowing quite what he wanted it to be.

Again and again while I was watching it, I found myself wondering, "Are these supposed to be real people? Or totally styled/satirical people?" They floated somewhere between, in a way that did not entirely work. At times I got the sense they were people written by someone who doesn't really understand or connect with people - who's able to touch on some uniquely human moments, but in the end prefers his quirky little imagined version of humanity.

For example, I think the best scene in the film for me is when the Jaffees (Yaffee's?) point out to Brad that he repeats that little story to charm everyone and cover up for his lack of a real personality/identity. That moment of realization that passes over his face. It's not that it's some intensely emotional or philosophical climax - it's just that small, ordinary, bathetic human anticlimax that makes it great. It seems to me this is exactly what the entire film meant to show us (see the Albert/Brad photo overlay), but for some unfathomable reason spent much of its time showing cutesy, stylized, hipster jokes instead.

06:15 / 14.03.05

Yeah, I agree. For me, there was one scene was really indicative of how the movie just didn't... quite... get... there: when Marky Mark and Naomi Watts kiss in the burning house. It needed to be a real, transcendent moment. (Like, say, John Cusack getting face to face with the wide-eyed baby in the reunion scene of the very charming Grosse Point Blank.) But instead, it just seemed laughable and cheap and, like so much of the film... twee. Ugh.

Tryphena Absent

09:40 / 14.03.05

I didn't think it was meant to be a transcendental moment at all. Look I really think you people need to read Existentialism and Humanism by Sartre. Take note: 'I have lately been told of a lady who, whenever she lets slip a vulgar expression in a moment of nervousness, excuses herself by exclaiming, "I believe I am becoming an existentialist." So it appears that ugliness is being identified with existentialism.' Then I should go and watch one of the Seasons Films by Eric Rohmer so you understand a little more about the French elements that crop up in this movie.

Then you might have a stab in the dark of getting I Heart Huckabees. This wasn't meant to be a feel good movie, it starred Isabelle Huppert for christ's sake. What have you been watching? Jeunet? Clint Eastwood? Dare I say it: Spielberg? Transcendental moments don't happen to people unless 1)they've been taking drugs or 2)they have brain trouble*.

*and Cusack clearly has brain trouble in Grosse Point, which makes the baby moment acceptable.

22:36 / 14.03.05

This wasn't meant to be a feel good movie, it starred Isabelle Huppert for christ's sake. What have you been watching? Jeunet? Clint Eastwood? Dare I say it: Spielberg?

I wasn't looking for it to be a feel good movie. I was just looking for substance. I don't know, it just struck me as a film whose charm was obscuring its lack of content. Perhaps I do need to research the works it references in order to understand it, but I don't trust it to reveal a deeper layer.

I could be totally wrong, and the reason why I would be wrong is because I've come to associate a certain tone (in this case in films) with a certain class of artist/filmmaker who has no real ideas but who has enough mastery of his medium to present a story whose cryptic or styled telling suggests the presence of meaning... but any meaning it does "have" is supplied by an intelligent audience that's so enthusiastic about its style they provide the content in their viewing & discussion of the thing. It's not Crap, it's just... lazy. If I'm a little reactionary toward such works it's because I detest artistic laziness. This may not be one of those films, but it so reminds me of them that I'm admittedly unable form an objective impression of it.

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