It’s difficult to watch I (Heart) Huckabees without thinking about director David O. Russell’s tirade against actor Lily Tomlin that was posted to Youtube. Unless you haven’t seen that clip, in which case you might wonder why all these different actors brought something a little different to a film that tries so hard to be a little different. But everything seems to cancel everything else out so all you’re left with is nothing, which is exactly the point the film is trying to make.

While Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin have fun with their roles as existential detectives, Jason Schwartzman falls into his role as a poet/environmental activist who enlists the help of the detectives to solve a strange coincidence in his life. Jude Law doesn’t quite shed enough of his Englishman to make a convincing faux-Walmart executive, and Mark Walberg absolutely nails a post-9/11 fireman who rails against the evils of petroleum above all else. The people who are screaming at health care town halls must have taken lessons from his character, only they are replacing the evils of petroleum with death panels and socialism.

While I love a good philosophical film, I’m a bit put off by films that try too hard to be philosophical, although I was glad to see the role of a nihilist not fall into the stereotype set by the Coen brothers. If existential detectives weren’t enough of a tip off, “special effects” were added whenever the conversation took a deep turn. Those scenes could have been interesting without the bits and pieces floating around but I guess some people need a cue when to pay attention.

One way to increase the complexity of the film is to view it with Fight Club lenses on. The characters of Tommy (Wahlberg) and Brad (Law) can be seen as two aspects of Albert’s (Schwartzman) personality. Tommy represents the tough persona that Albert lacks, while Brad represents the successful man with a beautiful girlfriend (played by Naomi Watts) that Albert cannot or does not want to be. The detectives (Hoffman and Tomlin) are trying to get Albert to betray his other two personalities in order for him to be happy with himself. While Tommy helps Albert stand up for himself, it takes Brad to show Albert his shortcomings, even as a representative of everything that Albert fights against.

To carry further the theme of seeing the worst of ourselves in those we despise, the nihilist Caterine (Isabelle Huppert) enters the lives of Albert and Tommy, who have been paired together by the existential detectives. Caterine is a rogue former student of the detectives and now teaches the opposite of their “everything is connected” philosophy. Tommy introduces Albert to Caterine, but Tommy soon finds himself the third wheel as Albert and Caterine explore earthly pleasures.

While Huckabees is an enjoyable ride at times, I would have gotten more pleasure out of it if I had been tagging along with Mark Wahlberg for most of the journey. It’s too simple these days to bring on the quirk. Mark grounds this otherwise offbeat film with a feeling that it all does matter, even as he grasps with the philosophical musings that humanity is just a small blip in the universe.

Everything turns out hunky-dory in the end, which was unfortunate. If, as a filmmaker, you’re going to bring in existential and nihilist themes early in the film, I want to suffer in the end. And by suffer, I mean in the good old fashioned sense of the term, like those European directors know so well. Huckabees made me suffer because the ending was so flat and so Hollywood. But don’t despair, there’s always the Youtube clip of Lily Tomlin going off on the director.

This review is part of Film for the Soul’s Counting Down the Zeroes, an ongoing exploration of the best films of the noughties.