‘I Heart Huckabee’s’ is fizzy and brainy

Writer-director David O. Russell, the independent auteur behind “Three Kings,” the best Gulf War movie to date, is back with his first picture in five years.

It’s a philosophical screwball comedy with an awkward title – “I (Heart) Huckabees” — that’s guaranteed to cause confusion at box offices everywhere. Giddy, brainy fun for most of its length, it runs into trouble only when it tries to explain itself and find a plausible ending.

Quick facts Starring: Jude Law, Naomi Watts, Mark Wahlberg, Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin Director: David O. Russell Run time: 1 hour, 46 minutes MPAA rating: R

Jason Schwartzman, the heroically eccentric student of “Rushmore,” plays Albert Markovski, a frustrated poet-environmentalist who has noticed a series of coincidences in his life. He consults a pair of  “existentialist detectives,” Bernard Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman) and his wife Vivian (Lily Tomlin), who dazzle him with their theories about how everything in the universe is connected.

“Most people prefer to stay on the surface of things,” Vivian tells Albert, but she knows he’s made of sterner stuff. To investigate the nature of the universe, Bernard places Albert in a “magic blanket” that acts like a sensory-deprivation tank. He can discover further insights into infinity at home, Bernard tells him, by putting on a face mask and nearly drowning in his bathtub.

But there’s an opposing view, represented by the seductive French nihilist, Caterine Vaubun (Isabelle Huppert), who argues that life is cruel and meaningless. Bernard and Vivian try to warn him away from Caterine, but Albert finds himself besotted with her. So is a firefighter, Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg), who recites her radical views.

Further complicating the philosophical discussions are Brad Stand (Jude Law), a materialistic executive with Huckabees department store, and his girlfriend Dawn Campbell (Naomi Watts), who has become a Huckabees advertising icon. Once she starts showing up at the office, dressed like “an Amish bag lady” (in Vivian’s words), however, both of their careers are endangered.

Russell claims that the Jaffes’ form of Eastern philosophy comes from his Amherst professor, Robert Thurman (father of Uma), who is now the chair of the Department of Religion at Columbia University. While Russell tries to keep the tone light and airy, there’s a true-believer quality here that sometimes drags it down. The talkier stretches, especially, seem to be preaching to a choir.

“I Heart Huckabees” is at its liveliest when Vaubun and the Jaffes are facing off and fighting for the souls of Albert and Tommy. Tomlin, who played an aging flower child in Russell’s “Flirting With Disaster,” purrs with delight as she tackles an extension of that role. Essentially the same thing happens with Wahlberg, who nearly drowned in oil in “Three Kings” and could be playing the same character five years later (he’s now obsessed with the petroleum industry).

Huppert was an inspired choice. Sometimes criticized for being sullen and opaque, she turns that stereotype on its head and gently mocks it. Law, Watts and Schwartzman don’t quite come into focus, partly because the script presents them more as types than people. This is a film of ideas, and it lives and sometimes dies as those ideas get tossed about.

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