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I think, therefore I hate 'Huckabees'

The self-indulgent existential "comedy" I Huckabees is a colossal waste of talent.

I hate I Huckabees. Not dislike or dismiss, but detest it to a degree that no movie with this much talent should ever reach. I've never left a theater so unsure of what I'd seen and unwilling to figure it out. But I think I know why David O. Russell's film is so impenetrable and disappointing, and it's all Charlie Kaufman's fault.

Kaufman is the most exciting screenwriter working today, author of such potent brainteasers as Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, plus the smaller puzzles Human Nature and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind that get better with each viewing. Almost single-handedly he created new storytelling for the screen, making the human mind a key element of set design and conflict. Kaufman works internally in a business built on external sensation. He is indispensable.

Russell sees what Kaufman does, and his reaction is either jealous or coveting. Russell wants to be praised for navel gazing as is Kaufman, and he may even be better at doing it. That could be why so many existential ideas posed in I Huckabees fly miles above our heads. Or else Russell has seen Kaufman's movies - and Fight Club and anything by Wes Anderson - and is mocking what he identifies as their pretensions. "You want confusion?" he asks from behind the camera. "I'll show you confusion."

Russell's failure - and this is tough, because I loved Flirting with Disaster and Three Kings - is that he shows absolutely no regard for anyone who isn't him. Kaufman invites the audience into his confusion, proving it to be universal. I Huckabees is a cynical, self-absorbed project that can make sense only in its creator's mind. Russell can't do Q&A sessions at every theater in the United States to explain it. The only audience for this film is dilettantes seeking another way to sound smart at cocktail parties.

The plot, so to speak, revolves around a self-loathing tree-hugger named Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman) hiring Vivian (Lily Tomlin) and Bernard (Dustin Hoffman in a gray Beatle wig), a pair of "existential detectives" who will spy on his miserable life and discover its meaning. The core of Albert's pain is a rivalry with Brad Stand (Jude Law), pretty-boy representative of the Huckabees department store chain. The friction could be Albert's environmental activism, wishing to save a marshland from Huckabees development, or it could be Brad's romance with Dawn Campbell (Naomi Watts), the chain's sexy advertisement decoration.

So far, so lucid. Russell soon spins out of control with existential double-speak declaring the pointlessness of life in a movie proving the same thing about itself. Nothing major happens, which is reasonably Zen for cinema, but nothing materializes from the nothingness. The Brown Bunny made more sense than this. Russell doesn't establish a premise; then he repeats the themes he didn't tie together as if he had. There aren't any hilarious moments to perk interest, although Mark Wahlberg is occasionally amusing as Tommy Corn, a hot-headed firefighter torn between Bernard and Vivian's New Age guidance and the nihilistic approach of their rival Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert).

It would help if Russell gave us one teeny, tiny clue about which side he's on in that rivalry, or why any of these characters matters. His refusal will be charitably viewed as bold and uncompromising in some quarters. Those quarters are wrong. I Huckabees is Russell flirting with disaster and falling head over heels in love with it.

I Huckabees

Director: David O. Russell

Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman, Jude Law, Naomi Watts, Mark Wahlberg, Isabelle Huppert, Jean Smart, Talia Shire

Screenplay: David O. Russell

Rating: R; strong profanity, brief sexuality

Running time: 106 min.