Odd, yet oddly funny and even oddly moving.
All the I hate I HEART HUCKABEES routines here, which I can rationalize but when it gets down to it, don't understand, does not correspond with the film I've seen. Odd certainly, because it doesn't follow the formula of a regular studio or independent movie, especially one with this kind of cast in it. Odd also because it never pretends to be anything but what it is, a fantasy; odder still because Russell treats his fantasy with a mixture of sincere concern and looney behavior as a straight foreword farce. And we're not dealing with sexual confusion or any of the other human foibles that traditionally motivates farce, but the characters' philosophical questions about the meaning of their lives.
With his last three film, David O. Russell has emerged from the sidelines to take a center position in American cinema, a position that some of us knew he belonged a long time ago. Now that he's there, the controversies surrounding his work has astoundingly intensified. One either loves Russell's movies, or simply hates them; there's no middle ground. Of the seven films he's written, directed, and completed, I HEART HUCKABEES justifiably ranks as the least successful, but, to my mind, that doesn't make it bad, or the kind of thing that justifies all the negatives applied throughout this message board. In fact, the more I watch it, the more impressed I am in the way David O. Russell creates this unique universe of philosophical crisis, intermingling a series of character journeys illustrating various arguments that suppose Existentialism to be a day by day, practical form of religion. Russell's formal dexterity, evident in the way he makes what is in fact a highly stylized bit of complicated storytelling seem rather effortlessly demonstrated, if not always dramatically/comically compelling.
Compared with the rather cookie cutter way Hollywood and today's idea of independent film, David O. Russell's off center movies seem to me an antidote to the traditional product filling the screens at our local cineplex; a refreshing reminder that stories outside the traditional box are possible and even important.