I saw I Heart Huckabees on Saturday. It's got a good cast that all acts well, decent writing, and good direction. And it's awful; I hated it. I don't know if I've ever respected a movie I disliked this much. And that's pretty much exactly what I was told to expect from the movie.

The concept is unique and clever—people struggling to find meaning in their lives go to get help from existential detectives Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman. The detectives spy on everything they do, their backgrounds, and so forth, discovering facts that will help them find the meaning in their clients' lives. But the plot is nonsensical and the characters are all very unlikable, and completely unrelatable unless perhaps you're having your own existential crisis.

So, clever concept aside, I'm left with a movie made up of characters that I hate, doing things I think are stupid, behaving in unpleasant ways, and not generally being any funnier than tongue-slightly-in-cheek. It reminds me of a Wes Anderson movie, except with a couple redeeming qualities. Just not enough to save it.

Labels: movies