Movies - I Heart Huckabees

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	Movies - I Heart Huckabees

I ♥ Huckabees (generally pronounced I Heart Huckabees, but also alternatively I Love Huckabees) is a film released in 2004. It was produced and directed by David O. Russell, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jeff Baena.

Plot summary

Albert Markovski (Schwartzman) is a young man who heads the local chapter of an environmental group, the Open Spaces Coalition. Hoping to find the answers to a coincidence in his life, he contacts two existential detectives, Bernard and Vivian Jaffe (Hoffman and Tomlin). These detectives offer Albert their existential philosophy and follow him, ostensibly to help him solve the coincidence. Brad Stand (Law) is a shallow executive at Huckabees, a chain of stores akin to Wal-Mart. He infiltrates Open Spaces and displaces Albert as the leader. Dawn Campbell (Watts) is Brad's live-in girlfriend and the face and voice of Huckabees; she appears in all of the store's commercials.

Bernard and Vivian introduce Albert to Tommy Corn (Wahlberg), an obsessively anti-petroleum firefighter. Tommy is Albert's "other", a kindred spirit. Tommy undermines the Jaffes and introduces Albert to Caterine Vauban (Huppert), a former student of the Jaffes who has espoused an opposing philosophy.

Through various twists, Brad and Dawn are also met and influenced by Bernard and Vivian.

Learning from both the detectives and Caterine, Albert attains enlightenment when he realizes the cosmic truth of everything through seeing that he and Brad are no different, that everything really is connected but these connections also come from painful reality.

Tagline: An existential comedy

Cast

Dustin Hoffman
- Bernard Jaffe, who plays one of two "existential detectives" (a character, according to Russell, somewhat inspired by Robert Thurman).
Lily Tomlin
- Vivian Jaffe, the other detective and wife of Hoffman's character
Jason Schwartzman
- Albert Markovski, an environmentalist who hires the couple played by Hoffman and Tomlin.
Jude Law
- Brad Stand, the nemesis of the environmentalist who is climbing the corporate ladder at Huckabees, a Wal-Mart-like chain of superstores.
Naomi Watts
- Dawn Campbell, the spokesmodel for Huckabees who lives with Law's character.
Mark Wahlberg
- Tommy Corn, an angry post-9/11 firefighter who attempts to draw Albert towards Caterine's nihilistic philosophy.
Isabelle Huppert
- Caterine Vauban, the nihilistic counterpart to the existential detectives.

Reception

The film opened October 1, 2004 with a record-setting $73,044 per screen average in New York and Los Angeles. Critical opinion for the film was mixed. Some critics were displeased with the overabundance of light metaphysical and philosophical subject matter while others praised the film's quirky humor and introduction to existentialism. Some found the screenplay, written by David O. Russell and Jeff Baena, to be dizzying and unfocused while many celebrated its inventiveness and originality. Most critics agreed that the actors' performances were well done, particularly that of Mark Wahlberg as Tommy Corn.

Despite some harsh reviews, the film has drawn a cult following since its initial release and has performed well in DVD sales.

Websites based on the film

In a unique advertising campaign for the film, five fictional websites were created. They were portrayed as if they were actual websites involving the characters and organizations featured in the movie. Each website had a link called "Disclaimer" at the bottom that leads to FOX Searchlight's for the film. The websites are as follows:

: The "official" website for the chain of Huckabees stores. Features the store history, announcements, three television ads featuring Dawn Campbell and a banner promoting the Huckabees collaboration with the Open Spaces Coalition.
*This website is inactive as of January 2006. It can be revisited at the Internet Archive through the following link:

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for I Heart Huckabees ]

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