You may well leave the cinema with the question: 'What the hell was that all about?' - but this is a corker of a movie, with perhaps the wittiest and slickest script ever seen... not to mention peerless performances by the entire cast.

It may sound complex and slightly on the odder side of regular, but the story deals with the life of Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman) who wants to get to the bottom of a series of coincidences which he thinks might help answer some niggling questions about life and other pretty deep stuff.

He's a brilliantly likeable character whose work involves petitioning against development on greenfield sites with the aid of poetry.

Albert is played to perfection by Schwartzman and his delivery of the opening lines would need more soap-water-in-the-mouth than Hugh Grant's character in Four Weddings.

In order to crack the meaning of his coincidences involving the 'big African man', Albert enlists the help of the Jaffes, the Existential Detectives, in the form of brilliant husband and wife team, Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman (complete with bad barnet and a tan to rival David Dickinson).

In order to probe the mysteries of Albert's innermost life, Bernard and Vivian Jaffe follow him around as he does his everyday activities - their subtlety wouldn't win awards but does win a lot of laughter from the audience.

There's no use of CCTV, instead you just get this slightly strange looking old bint perched on the window ledge with a notepad as Albert scrubs his teeth.

They discover Albert's festering battle with Brad Stand (Jude Law being convincingly smug and smackable), who's the young hotshot executive of Huckabees, a chain of retail-stores which has decided to sponsor Albert's Open Spaces Coalition as a good bit of PR.

In their attempt to get to the bottom of this conflict, Bernard and Vivian end up being hired by Brad as well, and then in turn by his girlfriend Dawn, the spokesmodel for the Huckabees chain - played by Naomi Watts looking ridiculously amazing in a bikini.

As the Existential Detectives continue to dismantle Albert's life, he becomes fed up and 'crosses to the other side' with another of their clients, firefighter Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg) - who's overly concerned with the world's petroleum dependency post 9/11.

The 'other side' is the view expounded by sexy French philosopher, Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert), who expounds the need for human suffering and drama - but with the help of a space hopper can offer bouts of relief.

It's not really a huge surprise, but the film doesn't conclude by giving us any valid answers to the big philosophical questions in life - although one secondary character does come up with the point that "curiosity killed the cat."

Instead the film throws various random objects - plastic geckos, Amish bonnets - together with some slightly off centre life options - charming your way up the corporate ladder with talk of Shania Twain's sandwich-eating habits, firefighting with the aid of a bicycle and saving trees and marshland via the medium of poetry - together with a mixture of perfectly cast characters who'll make you chuckle.

You will really love Huckabees.

Vic Saggers