“[Two] Overlapping, Fractured Philosophies.” In I <3 Huckabees

I <3 Huckabees is an enjoyable movie, that makes you think. It is a combination of a negative view on life, and a positive view on life or in Albert’s words two “overlapping, fractured philosophies.” Bernard believes that we are all the same, and that we are connected like “the blanket”. He demonstrated that we are all on different places of the blanket, yet we are all still part of the blanket: “Everything is the same, even if it’s different.” At first it seems like Bernard and his wife are trying to lend Albert and Tommy a positive way of thinking about life. I cannot remember Bernard’s wife’s name, as well as her view. I believe she was on the positive side as well since she was with Bernard, yet her main job seemed to be snooping around and spying on Albert.

The character Caterine had a more negative view on life, she felt like everything in the universe is meaningless. That is like the philosophy of nihilism, which I talked about in another of my posts: where whatever we do doesn’t make a difference because we are still going to die anyway. When Albert met Tommy, chaos slowly began to break loose. Tommy had gotten a hold of Caterine’s book, which led to Tommy’s wife (or girlfriend) and kid leaving. The wife had said to Tommy: “If nothing matters, how can I matter?” Tommy was in a major state of confusion and denial, so he was unable to answer her question.

The face placed on Huckabees is a model named Dawn who was Ken Doll’s (Brad’s) girlfriend. She acted like one of Brad’s groupies, acting stupid and being his cheerleader basically. In the commercials she would follow the director’s instructions and act like everyone expected her to act. Brad was trying to tell his girlfriend that she had a choice who to be, even while he was telling her to be pretty at the same time. Dawn responded, “it’s not a choice, I have to be pretty”. Brad was also a pretty boy who only cared about his image, and did not understand that he was not being himself.

Dawn was Huckabees Barbie Doll up until the scene where she came in wearing and bonnet and overalls, and Brad told her to leave through the back door so no one would see her. Dawn was acting who she is and wanted to be, which reminds me of the quote that Bernard said: “everything you ever want to be, you already are”. I found this a little bit confusing at first but it means that you have potential to be what you want to be because it is already in you. There is also a quote from when Tommy and Albert were hitting each other in the face; where Albert said: “I don’t feel like anything. I could be whatever is around me. I could be a rock, or I could be gold.” He did not feel like himself at that moment, which made him more aware of his surroundings. Tommy and Albert felt like the ball trick was brilliant because it cleared out their minds and helped them think about other things. Of course this is where Caterine says “you can’t just go that with the ball over and over again. It’s inevitable.. Then back to drama and suffering”. She was trying to tell them that you cannot escape for long, because no matter what drama and suffering comes back.

At the very end of the movie Albert and Tommy are sitting on the rock, and making faces at Bernard, Bernard’s wife, and Caterine. Bernard says, “I think we solved a case!” It seemed like they were pretending to be on negative and positive sides, when they were really all working together the whole time. In the end, Albert and Tommy seemed to find a meaning to their lives.