I Heart Huckabees

“I Heart Huckabees” is quite an interesting movie, with a lot philosophical and existential dilemmas – the sheer abundance of these makes it hard to follow and see where they all lead. Nevertheless, the movie was fun to watch and the analysis was feasible. We’ll stick to the good old dictionary definition of moral for this post: “concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.”

And so, the question is, does this movie have a moral vision? Yes, it does.

The whole movie stems from the main character, Albert Markovski, and his deep existential issues. The movie starts out with him cursing (quite a lot) and whining as to what it is he should do – does anything have any meaning, why is he here, where does he go, etc. He’s the founder of the “Open Spaces Coalition”, which aims to preserve nature (forests, marshes) in the suburban America he lives in. The problem is that the chain of department stores called Huckabees, wants to build a new unit the areas Albert’s trying to preserve. The antagonist, Brad, is a greedy executive who really just cares about his image and doesn’t give a damn about the preservation of nature – he maintains this charming and good natured image, but just because “you have to have people like you to be successful in this world”. So that’s basically the setting, and not what really matters. The good stuff’s at the major changes the characters go through by the end of the movie.

           

Albert, after seeing the same African man three times by coincidence and thinking it’s all part of a big meaning, goes to existential detectives. These two people (man and woman, married) basically help you discover layers within yourself to uncover and solve deeper issues.

           

The first main view presented is that everything’s connected – people may think we’re all separate beings but in truth we live under one “blanket” of truth. This means that everything good and bad that happens has a meaning, and that we should strive for good, because that’s what will make a positive impact on the universe. Albert at first agrees with this, but keeps getting put down by life’s misery – he gets fired from the charter that he founded, giving complete control to Brad over the fate of the forests and marshes. Albert then feels like it becomes super easy to do the wrong thing, and incredibly hard to the right thing, for which you get no payback.

The second, and opposing, philosophy is given by another existential detective when Albert’s “other” (friend) dumps the previous two detectives. This woman gives the view that everything is meaningless, there is no ultimate connection with anything, and that it’s “all random and cruel no matter what you do”. This leads to the question, so why try? At this stage, Albert and Tommy, feel better, because if there’s nothing you can really do, so they’re more at peace. It doesn’t last long though, because they soon realize that one can stop thinking, and just be, for a limited amount of time. Eventually you’re going to get sucked back into human drama, suffering, sadness, etc.

Both these philosophies oppose quite a bit all throughout the film, and at the end, seem to come to some kind of reconciliation. Albert acts as the mediator for this, as he’s been taught both the philosophies, and is now capable of understanding the truth in each of them – he learns not to lean over fully to any of them because they are polar opposites. In the end, Albert and Tommy both agree that the interconnection thing was definitely real, but grows from “the manure of human trouble […] no manure, no magic.” Therefore, it’s a bit of a mixture from both philosophies – the cruelty that is so random causes the interconnection.

Should art be moral? Definitely. I think art loses value when it does not dwell in deeper things – then again, “art” means a lot of things – I’m guessing you don’t want to think on what right and wrong decisions are after coming home from work and listening to some classical music. Art can be used for a lot of things, to relax, to stimulate, to distract, to incite, etc. One of the things it can and should do, is make us ask questions (which is exactly what this movie is doing, and film is an art).