American Beauty Movie Review

American Beauty, a film that was written by Allan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes in 1999 is a unique piece that demonstrates many sociological themes throughout the development of the plot. The characters strive to portray themselves as the All American Family. They live in a nice house, drive nice cars and seem perfectly normal to the general public, but the audience is allowed to view the deep set issues that plague the main characters; Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), Carolyn Burnham (Annette Bening), Jane Burnham (Thora Birch), and Jane's best friend Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari). As the plot develops there are many obvious parallels relating the lives of the characters to Merton's Strain

Life as a House is not just about one man and his battle of cancer. It is about family, and the interconnected stories of a father and son. The impact that one person can have on another, and the ability for an individual to change for the better because of a positive influence in their life. Sam Monroe went from a horribly depressed, reckless, attention seeking, anti-social adolescent who was selling his body for drug money, to a caring, loving son with a sense of purpose. Sam shows us that divorce can have a major

When I was told to choose a movie to perform a psychoanalysis on a character. I did not know what movie to choose. After watching the two hour long film on the multiple characters that seemed to be struggling to find their inner happiness: American Beauty. I knew that I should not look any further. One character that especially stood out was, Lester Burnham. A forty-two year old father with a mid-life crisis. In the film, American Beauty Lester Burnham is portrayed as an ordinary man, with a perfect life, but of course that is far from the truth. From the outside, Lester seems to have a perfect salary, and a perfect family who lives in a perfect neighborhood. In reality, things are not

The reader will find it difficult to draw connections between these neighbors and themselves when they hardly even know many intimate details about the lives of these characters. However, this is because the reader is put into a position where they are viewing characters from an outside perspective in the same way that the neighbors view each other: with little information about their lives. This is backed up in Neal Alexander’s article, titled “Profoundly Ordinary: Jon McGregor and Everyday Life”, where Alexander comments on the anonymous nature of the neighborhood, stating “The calculated anonymity that results is clearly intended to make a point about the nature of contemporary urban life, where neighbors typically maintain a defensive reserve toward one another” (Alexander 729-730). The novel maintains a type of irony in that it must detach the reader from the story in order to connect them in the same way that the characters are connected.

“Hey Brianna, meet me at 12:00 a.m. in the cafeteria so we can discuss what happened in class today.

Through Raymond Carver’s minimalist styled writing, comes “Neighbors,” a story about a seemingly ordinary couple who live dreary and plain lives. In the first few paragraphs we have a detailed description of the type of people, the relationship, and occupations Bill and Arlene Miller have. Later on, the story begins to spark a more dark and mysterious conflict by unraveling the Miller’s strange obsessions. Carver uses third person objective point of view to add onto his technique of simplistic writing & to create a more intense mystery.

In this story, the characters’ family is not the idealized family. It is not ideal for one to be divorced by her husband so that he can run away to his lover (who so happens to be a man). The characters in this scene (during the song “Making a Home”) are as follows: Whizzer (Marvin’s lover, also whom he divorced Trina for), Trina (Marvin’s ex-wife), Mendel (Trina’s husband and Marvin’s former psychiatrist), Jason (Marvin and Trina’s son). Jason has two pairs of parents (Marvin/Whizzer & Mendel/Trina), and his biological parents (Marvin & Trina) are seen always in the middle of a dispute. The resulting scenario shows conflict and unresolved tension throughout the show. The image attempting to get across in this song is the image of a perfect family. However, we as an audience know that not

A family indistinguishable from other families in the nation until the other families were told by their government to fear them. The house is a physical representation of what the family went through. The family was mistreated and sent to the camp simply because they were different and the house was mistreated and broken because of who owned it. The words written on the walks could symbolize how being called certain names had a jarring and lasting effect in the children. Just as the words are a symbol so is the broken and dirty glass. The family no longer sees themselves as something beautiful and good. Now they see themselves as something dirty and bad. They no longer look at themselves because they are ashamed at their own genetics. While the house doesn’t have much damage on the outside, it reflects the people that live inside of it. They hide their true emotions and show the world their bravest face, but on the inside strange people they so not know have trampled and ruined

American Beauty is a movie that sets in suburban America. The story is about Lester, whom is a middle-aged writer working in a magazine company. He was having a midlife crisis where he felt lonely and numbed by continuous unchanging routine of his everyday life. In the movie, his wife portrayed as a successful real estate agent, but she was also going through her own midlife crisis in both her career and personal life. Lester’s daughter, Jane Bumham had alienated her parents and was going through puberty. They have a new neighbor who is a U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Frank Fitts, and he has a son, Ricky Fitts, who is a drug dealer. Lester was going to get fired from his company that he had worked for fourteen

A growing sense of confidence is a theme found in American Beauty and Demian. After hanging out with Max Demian, Emil gains the confidence to tell Franz Kromer he will not bring his sister for him to meet and also tells his mother that he stole money from her piggy bank. In American Beauty, we see Lester Burnham slowly open up and he begins to speak his mind, instead of being afraid and keeping his mouth shut. An example of this is when he has a dispute with his wife Carol about their sexual frustrations. He says: "This hasn't been a marriage for years, but you were happy as

Karen, Regina and Gretchen are considered to be the mean girls, the ones who think they are the best of the best in their high school and no one can mess with them. They see themselves as royalty, although Regina is the head backstabber and would even throw her two sidekicks under the bus in order to remain on top.

Whether it be lust, romantic, or as a friend. Lack of identity or being noticed by his own wife causes Lester to look for attention elsewhere. He looks to Angela for attention, just as his wife goes to Buddy King to have an affair. Both of the people they go to provide Lester and Carolyn what they could not provide each other. Before, Lester had to live in a world where he couldn’t really be his own person. He believed that by giving into his temptations, he would reach the satisfaction he desires, and finally feel fulfilled. Though, we find out that pursuing his desires only made matters worse, and uncovered many more issues that had a snowball

“American Beauty”, the 1999 film, is a motion picture that more or less shows a different side of the average suburban family. Although all of the characters have significant issues, I have chosen to take a closer look at Lester Burnham. Lester Burnham is a 42-year-old businessman who is married to the career-obsessed Carolyn and they have one daughter, a teenager named Jane. One of the first scenes of the movie explains how the family works: Carolyn is driving, just like she “drives” the family, Jane is sitting right next to her in the front seat, and Lester is slouched in the backseat, visually becoming more miserable by the second.

“I have lost something...It’s never too late to get it back,” stated Lester Burnham, the main character of American Beauty. American Beauty is a 1999 film that provides a look into the lives of a modern married couple that is dealing with issues within their relationship. As the story progresses, it is easily identifiable that the roles of the husband and wife are not what the viewers would expect. On the other hand, the homosexual couple presented throughout the movie seems to be the normal pair. Furthermore, society’s definition of beauty and contentment is questioned. Throughout American Beauty, the homosexual couple has a healthier relationship than the heterosexual couple and beauty is falsely represented.

images as constructions that we created around ourselves as a means of hiding our true selves. Mendes is able to implicate us in the construction and make us active viewers by exploiting our voyeuristic nature. In American Beauty Mendes uses the voyeuristic tendencies of the spectator to acknowledge the permeating constructed images. Mendes, through the use of narration, the mise en scene and cinematic techniques implicates the spectator in to using their voyeuristic tendencies to deconstruct