Hey, where can I get a posable Jude Law?

Does everything matter or does nothing matter? Are we all connected or is each of us an isolated, random collection of molecules? Can you handle my infinite nature? And what of Shania Twain? These questions and more will be answered by I Heart Huckabees, though I suspect the answers you hear will depend as much on you as on the movie.

Albert (Jason Schwartzman) is a dedicated but stressed-out environmentalist whose work to preserve open spaces has so far preserved a pretty decent-sized rock. Albert's anxiety leads him to seek out Bernard and Vivian Jaffe, (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) a pair of Existential Detectives.

Wait, a pair of what now?

The Jaffes’ philosophy is that everything has meaning, everything is connected and we need to recognize and embrace the threads that run beneath the surface of our lives, tying us to the universe and each other. Their work consists of following Albert around, observing everything he does until they discover the hidden connection that will make sense of his life. (By the way, I could TOTALLY do this job. I'm drawing up a business plan right now.)

Philosphy's a dirty business, but someone has to do it.

We also meet Tommy, (Mark Wahlberg) another client of the Jaffes, a firefighter who has been overcome by anger and despair since the September 11th attacks; Brad, (Jude Law) a toothy, glad-handing executive for the Huckabees retail chain ("Huckabees: Your Everything Store!"); and his girlfriend, Dawn, (Naomi Watts) the Huckabees spokes model who starts to wonder if there's a world beyond pretty.

Ah, but philosophy wouldn’t be philosophy if everyone agreed on it. Enter Caterine Vauban, (Isabelle Huppert) the Jaffes’ nemesis, just in from France to poach their clients. According to her, nothing has meaning, everything is random and the best we can hope for is the occasional moment of peace between bouts of suffering and trauma. Her business card reads, “Cruelty, manipulation, meaninglessness,” a mantra that sounds a lot more like the real world to Albert and Tommy.

I Heart Huckabees is a dazzling debate of a movie. Not many filmmakers are up to the challenge of the Big Question -- what, if anything, does it all mean? – but writer/director David O. Russell (Three Kings, Flirting with Disaster) gracefully dances with his heady subject matter, creating an exhilarating, modern, American movie with the soul of a classic French farce. (The score by Jon Brion helps set that tone.) With slapstick and sight gags, verbal comedy and absurdist humor, Russell and co-writer Jeff Baena make us laugh and think and feel.

"I'm sorry, but you know the rules. You make an Ishtar joke, you get ten minutes in the bag."

The laughing part: I don’t think a minute went by where I wasn’t at least giggling. There’s something undeniably amusing about the sight of Lily Tomlin peering through a window as Jason Schwartzman eats breakfast, or Mark Wahlberg telling his little girl that Mommy’s leaving him because she doesn’t care about children working in third-world factories.

The thinking part: While some (many) critics have dismissed the movie’s point of view as pretentious and/or juvenile I found it remarkably nuanced and thoughtful. Russell and Baena find ways to discuss ideas that aren’t necessarily cinematic without turning the movie into a series of lectures. Neat trick.

The feeling part: Every now and then the movie will surprise you with a genuinely affecting moment. Nothing big, no three-hankie weepers, just wondrous little scenes where a character realizes some small thing that casts a whole new light on his or her life.

"I thought we settled this. Jude, you're the prettiest and Mark, you, well, you have a beard."

The cast is fantastic. Hoffman and Tomlin, of course, could do their parts in their sleep, but that doesn’t diminish their performances in the least. Schwartzman is raw and angry and desperate, Watts finds the pulse of her not-so-vacuous golden-girl and Jude Law is hilarious and genuine as the slick yuppie whose smooth, plastic coating starts to get chipped away. But the real revelation to me is Mark Wahlberg. I don’t know why; I’ve said before that he was great in Three Kings. But that was the last thing I liked him in until now. Russell must know how to flip Wahlberg’s actor switch because he’s brilliant here, with impeccable comic timing. Dammit, Mark, this is the kind of role you need to keep looking for. Give up the action hero fantasies, they make you boring.

I’m going to say something I’ve never said before, something that goes against my “to each his own” critical code of ethics. I know from reading other reviews that I Heart Huckabees isn’t for everybody. I’m used to loving movies that other people can’t stand and I can usually understand why the others feel that way. But this time . . . uh uh. I just don’t get it. I’m not saying you will like this movie, I’m just saying you should. I was giddy walking out of the theater, in a way I haven’t been since, well, you know. I Heart Huckabees is the best movie – so far – of 2004, and I think it will be a tough one to beat.

Gorilla Pants rating: 4 out of 4 bananas