American Beauty: A Story of Surburban Family Life

The film American Beauty is one of the most thought provoking movies of the 1990's. The narrator of the film is Lester Burn ham . Lester Burn ham is in his early forties and works at an advertising firm ,early in the movie he gets tired of his unfullfiling job and quits then decides to work at a fast food restaurant. Lester begins doing all types of unusual things for him due to him feeling old . He trades the family sedan in for a 1970 Pontiac Firebird , he develops a crush on his teenage daughter's friend , Angela, he begins working out hoping to impress her with his newly buff body, he also begins smoking marijuana recreationally. His wife Carolyn is greatly concerned by how she and her family appear to outsiders. It preoccupies most of her daily thoughts.She works as a real estate agent , she like Lester however, feels that she is not performing up to her full potential.

Once Lester started making changes in his life it off threw Carolyn's balance of power. Carolyn wanted nothing more than to be in control . Once she meets her real estate rival for a business lunch they begin to have an affair, she also buys a gun to practice at the range with . Once after an afternoon tryst Carolyn and Buddy go to grab a quick bite to eat at a local fast food restaurant . Lester hears them flirting in the car over the drive through speaker he says hello and hands them their food not showing any emotion. Carolyn is visibly upset about him "catching her " but it seems as if her feelings are hurt because of his lack of reaction to the situation.Jane is the typical angry teenager. She is very self conscious and is saving up for a breast enhancement. Her closest friend Angela brags constantly about her modeling jobs and crazy sex on the weekends, which we later find out is untrue when Jane's father and Angel come close to making love, Angela is in fact a virgin. Jane meets Ricky the new next door neighbor at school while he is filming things.

He shows her his favorite of just a plastic bag floating in the wind and the beauty of it . Ricky sells marijuana to Lester and others in order to save money to get out from under the strict watch of his military background father. Ricky films Jane through her windows in the corner of one of the movies you see a naked Lester exercising. Ricky's father takes that as him being homosexual , when Ricky returns home his dad begins to assault him for being homosexual. Ricky is heterosexual but insinuates he is homosexual so his father will kick him out . He leaves and asks Jane to go with him to New York she happily accepts the invitation. After Ricky runs over to the Burnham residence , his father is distraught and wanders over to the garage where Lester is working out . He begins to breakdown and Lester tries to console him and talk to him but Ricky's father still believing Lester to be a homosexual , makes an advance on him and kisses him . Lester is stunned and tells the Col. that he has the wrong idea and he is not interested in him that way. That sends the Col. over the edge the final scenes of the movie show the Col.'s gun missing from the case, and him covered in blood .

Right before Lester gets shot he is looking at a picture of his family reminiscing over happier times he finally seems content. This movie was so thought provoking . I enjoyed the symbolism of the plastic bag and beauty . Beauty can be found in everything if you slow down long enough to take it all in . The movie was happy and sad at the same time . When Lester died it seemed as if he was finally at peace in his heart . This movie also shows that even though by all outside appearances someone has the perfect family life you never know what is going on behind closed doors they could be calling out for help.

You can purchase this film at www.amazon.com, http://turnerclassic.moviesunlimited.com/product.asp?sku=D18379, and www.cduniverse.com.Perfect families are not always as they seem.Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder and in everything. Alan Ball originally wrote American Beauty for the stage. He saw a paper bag floating in the wind near the World Trade Center plaza and was inspired by it to write the film.www.dreamworks.com/ab