wildcat

So I've decided that I want to be an existential detective. Michael and I went to see I Heart Huckabees tonight at Cinecenta, jacked up on After Eight chocolate bars and bottles of SoBe. I can't even remember what flavour of SoBe. I can't understand this momentary flare up of consumer behaviour. There was also popcorn involved, but I don't like to admit that. Collapsing down, collapsing down.

I really grooved on the film. Jason Schwartzmann of Rushmore and whatever that cracked-out movie about meth-heads was called? He's a poet and environmentalist who suffers from a string of coincidences, and goes in search of the meaning. And from there it's existential crises a-plenty: Jude Law, Naomi Watts, and Mark Wahlberg. Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman were the existential detectives, along with their opponent, played by Isabelle Huppert - but, really, do they find meaning in meaningless lives, or do they find meaninglessness in meaningful lives or do they actually make the person in question realize something else? I loved that it completely obliterated the whole "epiphany" moment concept by having everybody have them every three seconds. Michael wasn't hot on Wahlberg's character, Tommy, who was pretty much an uncultured character in the process of becoming cultured (a fool finding wisdom, which is a bit obvious) - but I don't know. I actually found Wahlberg worked with the script to make a human character who wants to believe in all the philosophy but is still very human and actually has feelings. I can understand why Michael didn't like him, at times the dogmatic aspects of philosophy were just sort of SPEWED out of Tommy's mouth without much attention to the meaning, but at the same time - I don't know. He felt honest, when you got right down to it, even if that one moment with Naomi Watts was more goofy than anything - well - unglamourized.

There were definitely weak moments - Schwartzmann's acting at times felt a bit flat, and there were points in the film where - I don't know - the tone felt off. There was some wonderful moments where everybody's just talking-talking-talking and it built up that rhythm even in the face of meaninglessness, but it kind of broke down and didn't gel for me. At the same time, it's illustrating it's point (or one of its points, or something masquerading as its point). The search for meaning and the search for meaninglessness worked very well, and I think for the moment the scene where Schwartzmann's mother and father are brought in and exposed for who they were and their part in their son's life? It was brilliant. It felt like it was Freudian but at the same time it admitted that that's just one small piece of a bigger thing.

The Existential Detectives - Caterin, Vivan, and Bernard - really made the picture for me. Brilliant character work with the three of them, and the careful seperation between the three styles of analysis and detection. They lacked what you might call decorum, but really just viewed it as a needless social structure. They were in the "know," but didn't exposit about it - even as it appeared that they did. They were just trying to initiate the whole big brain meltdown (okay, so Jude Law having his crisis was the other best part).

The cinematography could have been improved in places, it felt really solid at times and sort of pedestrian at other times, which is maybe an important facet (variety - every shot can't be mind-blowing), but other points just seemed dull. The film depended on a lot of visual effects and CGI at unexpected moments, and it led me to expect more from it - which wasn't always delivered. But there was enough decent work being done that I can forgive.

Actually, this feels entirely "laudatory" (you know, praising). I'm going to go lie down and complain about things for a while.