David O. Russell's new comedy I  ♥ Huckabees seems to have something for everyone to complain about.  It's either too light, too talky, not quite funny enough or some combination thereof.  Sure, it's billed as a comedy, but the fact that it's a comedy about ideas rather than characters and it's humor comes more from the overwhelming glee with which Russell presents the material than traditional gags has left many people disappointed or confused by what they just saw.  It may not be the year's funniest film, but it is one of the smartest and the clever, light-hearted manner that the flurry of philosophical inquiries are tossed our way kept a smile on my face and gave me that warm, fuzzy feeling inside.  The film opens with a blurred image and an outburst of curse words that we soon find out were illustrating the discontent of our protagonist, Albert Markovski (Schwartzman).  Standing in front of a marsh, where he has just preserved a ludicrously tiny piece with the help of his organization, Open Spaces, he reads a rather terrible poem that he somehow thinks will inspire others.  Realizing that, despite his pro-active altruism that makes him instantly likeable, Albert operates on a self-serving level (whether the promotion of his poetry at the expense of the environmental group occurs on a sub-conscious level or not is beside the point) like everyone other character is important when considering the dynamic of the film.  Russell fills the screen with easily identifiable post-9/11 characters - the conservative suit, the fireman, the environmentally conscious liberal, the all-American, Christian family, etc. - forcing our prejudices, pre-conceptions, and politics to surface almost immediately.  It's as if he's begging us to identify with one character or another, before taking us on a ride where we realize how limited our own perspectives are.  You can call them clichés, but they're clichés with a purpose.

A pair of existential detectives, Bernard and Vivian (beautifully realized by Hoffman and Tomlin), make their way in when Albert visits them about a series of coincidences involving "a large, African man".  They soon find that his inquiry stems more from his recent confrontations with Brad Stand (Law), the hokey corporate spokesman that is usurping Open Spaces and using it to promote the Huckabees Corporation.  As their investigation launches, so does the free-flowing of philosophical questions and ideas and Russell does a heck of job balancing the outburst of ideas and the narrative which propels its characters into states of confusion, enlightment, frustration, despair, reconciliation, and back again.  Although some of the characters are little more than mouthpieces of a philosophical belief system - Bernard and Vivian present the overly-cheerful, all-embracing qualities of existentialism while Caterine Vauban's (Huppert) nihilistic methodology seems to negate everything the former stands for -  the film is quite humanistic, even if said humanism is present more in the content of its ideas than its characters.  Russell constantly toys with the character's perceptions; how they see themselves, others, and the world around them, and uses amusing and unique methods to involve the audience in these shifting views.  The dream sequences and breaking of the screen into tiny pixels are not only clever ways of (literally) bringing these ideas to life, but are used to help us to focus on our own perception, even during the film.  Fortunately I  ♥ Huckabees never becomes didactic and in fact presents the search for answers, rather than finding them, as the key to finding some happiness and understanding in this confusing, hypocritical little world of ours.  The cyclical nature of the film (notice the very similar opening and final shots within different contexts) suggests the folly of becoming entranced with a single idea or philosophy and closing your mind to others, but also shows the inherent, yet necessary, absurdity in the search for truth and meaning.  It may not provide you with the answers to life's elusive questions, but chances are you'll leave the theater with a sense of wonder and excitement and hopefully looking at everything around you a bit differently.