I Heart Huckabees
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: October 1, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
16
Negative:
4
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
PremiereGlenn Kenny
The result is by far the most original comedy of the year. Russell might alienate some audience members here--but it’s possible they literally won't know what they're missing. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
The film is a snort-out-loud-funny master class of controlled chaos. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Among the most insane mainstream movies ever released. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Watching I Heart Huckabees was like taking my first Manhattan cab ride with a madman behind the wheel. As the skyscrapers whizzed by, I thought, "What a view! I just wish we'd slow down, so I could take everything in." Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
A fresh, buoyant, mischievous and rather jolly meditation - if that's the word for a movie as divinely nuts as this one is - on the meaning of life in an unhappy world. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
One of the boldest, most audacious American movies of the last 25 years, a freewheeling cerebral carnival of energy and ideas, if not always coherence or cohesion. Read full review
80
EmpireDan Jolin
A fresh, funny little romp. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
A lot of people are going to describe it as a waste of time, yet there's a likeability to the quirky characters that held my interest while tickling my funny bone. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Best of all is Mark Wahlberg as Tommy, an angry post-9/11 firefighter so against Big Oil that he rides to fire scenes on his bike. Read full review
75
New York PostMegan Lehmann
The frantic nuttiness of the stylistically dynamic Huckabees is often laugh-out-loud funny, but amid the pandemonium there's a sense of truly rigorous soul-searching. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneAllison Benedikt
As one might imagine, with such a neato premise and lofty goal, the plot's a little messy. So points docked for execution. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
A risky, foolish, intelligent comedy. Read full review
70
VarietyDavid Rooney
Clever but distancing, this existential comedy bounces along on the backs of its tasty cast, witty writing and stylistic verve. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
There's more than a bit of Charlie Kaufman to the heady premise, although the scenario doesn't double back on itself--except perhaps in the joke of having Schwartzman's actual mother, Talia Shire, play his mother on-screen. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
The movie is undeniably weird, though it's hardly what you'd call "experimental." My hunch is that whether you love it or reject it as obtuse, incoherent or self-involved will be a generational thing. Read full review
70
Washington PostTeresa Wiltz
With razor-sharp performances, zingy one-liners, broad slapstick humor and a message of sorts, there's enough to distract the viewer from becoming hopelessly lost in the lint-filled chaos that is the umbilicus. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Despite a consistent tone of all-out absurdity, it's a very demanding movie, and its goofiness is never inspired or laugh-out-loud funny enough to carry us along on its leap of imagination. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
What emerges is part screwball comedy, absurdist farce, social satire and earnest self-exploration. If it had the unwavering focus and clear-eyed vision of Russell's previous two features, I Heart Huckabees might have been brilliant. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
So I didn't Huckabees, nor did I entirely not it. Rather, when the end draws nigh and judgment beckons, I'm doomed again to dither in the tepid netherworld, that vast limbo where movies are only half-decent and movie-going is merely half-ed. Read full review
63
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Huckabees boasts an impressive cast, and every one of them is fun to watch. But there's a strong sense that no one really knows what's going on here. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
Despite the unique premise and some truly inspired casting, the picture remains stuck in an existential rut of its own. Read full review
60
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Feels weirdly impersonal; very little love, or even true thought, shows up on the screen. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
A philosophical comedy about man's place in a universe colonized by Targets and Wal-Marts. Read full review
50
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Ultimately, Huckabees doesn't work. But it sure does stimulate. This is just the kind of "failure" we could use plenty more of. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Huckabees is the real thing--an authentic disaster--but the picture is so odd that it should inspire, in at least a part of the audience, feelings of fervent loyalty. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
The philosophic notions in I Love Huckabees are ultimately not much more than window dressing for some fancy slapstick. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
What in the Buddha's name is going on in I Heart Huckabees? Russell has come up with a grab bag of ideas that don't stick with you because they don't stick together. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
David O. Russell hasn't yet developed enough filmmaking savvy to juggle so many intellectual, emotional, and narrative elements. He's clever and ambitious, but perhaps too much so. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
When the average comedy is aimed at juvenile 12-year-olds of all ages, the fact that Russell's target audience is precocious 12-year-olds of all ages is a significant improvement without actually being a triumph of mature wit over boorish puerility. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
The cinematic equivalent of the mad-scientist experiment gone awry. It seems to be grooving on its own strangeness, at the expense of its connection with a paying audience. Read full review
50
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
The resulting product is so disjointed it's hard to tell if Russell dumbed down the film in the hope of garnering a larger audience, or if I Heart Huckabees simply isn't as smart as it likes to think it is. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Overstocked farce. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Individual moments and lines and events in I Heart Huckabees are funny in and of themselves. Viewers may be mystified but will occasionally be amused. It took boundless optimism and energy for Russell to make the film, but it reminds me of the Buster Keaton short where he builds a boat but doesn't know how to get it out of the basement. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
With its lackluster surfaces and thin core, his (Russell) film displays neither heart nor brains enough to earn its whimsy. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Everyone up on the screen appears to be having so much fun, you wish the movie found a way to let you into the party. Read full review
40
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Where Russell wobbles in this screenplay, which he wrote with Jeff Baena, is not in his intent but that he omitted to make it funny. Read full review
30
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
Russell, a former student of Buddhist monk-philosopher Robert Thurman's, is reaching too far, straining too hard, saying too much that adds up to so little after all the mumbos and jumbos tallied up by film's end. Read full review
10
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Huckabees is godawful, a mirthless, bilious bore in which the vividly focused fury of "Three Kings" has become free-floating anger at the follies of human existence.
10
SlateDavid Edelstein
Russell is a manically inventive writer-director--maybe the most fearless talent of his generation. It's not a contradiction to say that I admire him more than ever while pronouncing Huckabees an unmitigated disaster. Read full review
10
Washington PostDesson Thomson
It's uncompromisingly bad, single-mindedly off-target. Read full review
More From This Movie

55 Critic Reviews

6.6 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL