I ♥ Huckabees (pronounced I Heart Huckabees) is a film released in 2004. It was produced and directed by David O. Russell, who co-wrote it with Jeff Baena .

Plot summary

Albert Markovski (Schwartzman) is a young man who heads the local chapter of an environmental group, the Open Spaces Coalition. Hoping to find the answers to a coincidence in his life, he contacts two existential detectives, Bernard and Vivian Jaffe (Hoffman and Tomlin). These detectives offer Albert their existential philosophy and follow him, ostensibly to help him solve the coincidence. Brad Stand (Law) is an executive at the Huckabees chain of stores. He infiltrates Open Spaces and displaces Albert as the leader. Dawn Campbell (Watts) is Brad's live-in girlfriend and the face and voice of Huckabees; she appears in all of the store's commercials. Bernard and Vivian introduce Albert to Tommy Corn (Wahlberg), an obsessively anti-petroleum firefighter. Tommy is Albert's "other", a kindred spirit. Tommy undermines the Jaffes and introduces Albert to Caterine Vauban (Huppert), a former student of the Jaffes who has espoused an opposing philosophy. Through various twists, Brad and Dawn are also met and influenced by Bernard and Vivian.

Tagline: An existential comedy

Cast

• Dustin Hoffman, who plays one of two "existential detectives" (a character, according to Russell, somewhat inspired by Robert Thurman)
• Lily Tomlin, the other detective and wife of Hoffman's character
• Jason Schwartzman, an environmentalist who hires the couple played by Hoffman and Tomlin
• Jude Law, the nemesis of the environmentalist who is climbing the corporate ladder at Huckabees, a Wal-Mart-like chain of superstores
• Naomi Watts, the spokesmodel for Huckabees who lives with Law's character
• Mark Wahlberg, an angry post-9/11 firefighter
• Isabelle Huppert, the nihilistic counterpart to the existential detectives

External links

• Official Site from Fox Searchlight
• The Huckabees Corporation (fictional)
• Jaffe & Jaffe, Existential Detectives (fictional)
• Open Spaces Coalition (fictional)
• Camus's Choice: I Heart Huckabees