I [Heart] Huckabees

I liked David O. Russell's “Flirting With Disaster,” and really liked his “Three Kings.” But in this funky mess, he lets his arch, post-ironic sensibility get away from him. The movie puts its superb cast (Jason Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman, Naomi Watts, Mark Wahlberg, Jude Law, Isabelle Huppert) through a lot of clever paces. There are some sharp, funny scenes, but Russell (and co-writer Jeff Baena) never finds a way to give the movie an emotional or narrative center. The result is like something two overeducated and hyper-caffeinated grad students might come up with on a weekend bender, drunk with philosophical musings and each highly confident that the other is the smartest, funniest person he has ever worked with.