Recently purchased this DVD and decided to write a review, although it was released a good few years ago.
I Heart Huckabees is not at all what I expected it to be, although I did still enjoy it. Personally, i dont remember much advertising for the film when it was released in 2004, but from the DVD cover and summary I thought it would be a light-hearted comedy, similar to a "chick-flick",.
The plot revolves around a man named Albert, a nature lover who is trying to stop the development of another chain store opening named Huckabees. After seeing the same stranger, a tall African man, seemingly by "coincidence", three times in different locations, he seeks the help of two "existential detectives" to help make sense of these coincidences. The detectives begin following Albert's every move in an attempt to prove that the coincidences are connected, but after awhile Albert becomes frustrated and ditches them. He looks to a different detective, Caterine, who has an entirely different outlook to life and who persuades him that everything is disconnected; the coincidences mean nothing and that the suffering of human drama is inevitable.
Meanwhile, Albert continues to bicker with a man at work named Brad, who appears to be superficial and whom he seemingly has nothing in common with.
By the end of the film, Albert seems to have reached some kind of understanding about life, having combined the two different approaches. The main moral (and this took me awhile to be honest) is that everyone IS connected, as we are not all that different from one another, but we are connected by the pain of human drama and existence.
All in all, a decent film which really makes you think about life and the meaning of life. The film is based on entertaining philosophical ideas, so i wouldnt recommend it if you have no interest in philosophy or questioning things. Some do argue that the film "dumbs down" existentialism, though, so that could be as equally offputting if you ARE very knowlegable about the topic. As someone who is quite interested, but not wholly knowledgable about it all, I did quite enjoy exploring the different approaches.
Some good points about the film - good cast, and Jude Law's American accent is quite entertaining. Original plot, and the overall style of it is quirky and offbeat which I quite liked.
Disadvantages - I didn't find it as funny as i thought it would be and don't think it should be advertised as a comedy as it's not really. It's been aimed at the wrong kind of people in general, I think. Dont watch it if you are looking for a simple, predictable, funny type of film because this film is much more complex, but stil enjoyable in its own way.