Music writer Chuck Eddy once observed that Gladys Knight's heartrending, soulful rendition of "Midnight Train to Georgia" only works because it's balanced by the mindless, train-whistle "woo-woos" of her backup singers, the Pips.
Eddy's observation has come to be known as 'The Gladys and the Pips rule.' In a nutshell, the rule states that, at its best, pop music must be both sublime (Gladys) and ridiculous (the Pips). Too much Gladys and you get treacle. Too much Pips and you end up with bubblegum.
The real genius of the rule is that it works across all mediums, including film. Take, for example, filmmaker David O. Russell's first feature since his acclaimed "Three Kings" (1999), "I Heart Huckabees," a movie that refuses to take itself seriously enough and ends up suffering from a lack of Gladys and too much Pips.
"Huckabees" tackles a familiar twentysomething-with-an-existential-crisis storyline. Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman) is an environmentalist whose activist group has been co-opted by the Huckabees corporation, a Wal-Mart-like retailer that must clean up its negative image so it can continue to deforest the world with urban sprawl. The man behind the company's contrived environmentally-conscious image, and Albert's nemesis, is Brad Stand (Jude Law), an affable but conniving corporate climber at Huckabees, whose girlfriend (Naomi Watts) is the retailer's spokesmodel.
To sort out his grievance with Huckabees, Albert turns to husband-and- wife existential detective team Vivian (Lily Tomlin) and Bernard Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman). In a process that's half Philosophy 101 lecture and half psychoanalysis, the detectives help Albert cope with his "infinite nature." The Jaffes' basic view on life is that "everything is connected and everything matters." This optimistic view is contrasted throughout the film by the beliefs of their nemesis, French nihilist Catherine Vauben.
When Albert finds that Brad too has enlisted the Jaffes for help (Brad thinks an existential crisis will make him more interesting at work), Albert rebels and switches sides to Vauben. He's helped along by Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg), a petroleum-obsessed firefighter who's been "a little unhinged since the 9/11 thing."
As you can probably already guess "Huckabees" never deigns to take its philosophical leanings too seriously, nor its comic moments too lightly. "Huckabees" bounces merrily along to its own train-whistle. Characters write poems about rocks ( "you rock, rock"), make love in wetlands, smack each other in the face with kickballs, and ponder the imponderable: just what does it all mean?
The question does get answered in the end, and it's the kind of pat Hollywood philosophy that seems forced and out-of-place in most movies, but feels like a welcome profundity after all of "Huckabees"' zaniness.
Not to imply that the zaniness doesn't have its own sublime charm. At times, "Huckabees" manic insouciance is so endearing that you forget all about Gladys. A scene that pits Albert and Tommy, newly nihilized by Vauben, against a down to earth, hard-working Christian family is hilarious. Responding to the family's claim that firefighters are heroes, Tommy replies that they'd all be heroes if they stopped killing people for oil. Later, when Naomi Watts' character has her own philosophical crisis, she denounces her beauty and begins to dress like she's Amish, accosting her pretty replacement on the set of her latest ad-spot.
In fact, one of "Huckabees"' biggest achievements is the fact that it's able to pull off any of its wildly uneven, high-concept jokes at all. When it does, it's like all the Pips harmonizing at once.
The film is so strange, so wild that its mere existence is a metaphysical miracle. Expect to walk out of the theater confused - but definitely pleased.
