
Although in some ways I feel uncomfortably like I'm watching an indie-phile's case study that hits all the right notes--"philosophical" musings countered by self-reflexive deconstruction of such musings; startlements (the string of profanities that begins the movie, Jason Schwartzman being wet-nursed by Jude Law); lo-fi soundtrack; primary-color palette (with digital doodlings); reinvention of Old Guards (Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin) as Old Turks (not to mention the Young ones, particularly Jason (Rushmore) Schwartzman); and obligatory stunt-casting and iconoclasm (consider Naomi Watts disheveled and Isabelle Huppert begrimed--and bent over a log)--I must admit to heart-ing I Heart Huckabees (2004).
The problem, though, is that I am a sentimentalist--at times unashamed, at others apologetic, at still others masked by a faux-casual "directness" I fear I've swiped from my betters: Phil Marlowe, Bogart, even Bruce Willis when he isn't howling through a firestorm. In any case, my sentimentalism impedes me from a clear-eyed appreciation of the general shape of a movie. I go in wanting one particular thing, getting another--or, more often, many others--but willfully tossing it all out in favor of some off-center self-referential moment, some hint of my own life outside the movie, instead of sticking with the movie itself. I simply have too much (I believe) I want to say. Thank God I actually try to be silent during a movie--even so, I've been scolded for spontaneous utterances; heck, I can even now see myself at home pausing the movie to hold forth on something.

I did all this and more to I Heart Huckabees--and I'm glad I've been writing about this, because it's only taken me a couple of paragraphs to convince myself I've done nothing wrong; actually, I'm doing exactly what I should. At the moment when a movie trips the breaker and shuts me down, I have the opportunity, quiet in the dark, fumbling to regain the light--but calm, even (if I must say so myself) thoughtful--to decide what to do when I switch the light back on. Huckabees is a good movie for this kind of ruminating reinvention; indeed, it all but demands it. When Schwartzman's Albert looks at the Polaroid of his arch-nemesis Brad (Jude Law) in tears, and little digital squares float like butterflies atop Brad's face, replacing it with Albert's, I felt the breaker go--and the light I restored, in a second or two, was made of forgiveness and reconciliation. Albert was seeing interconnectedness. It was bliss.

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