American Beauty (12/23/2018)
Just a quick overview of all the characters before I start:
Lester Burnham: the main character (the perv/guy who is bored of life)
Carolyn Burnham: Lester's wife, eventually cheats on Lester
Jane Burnham: Lester's daughter, friend of Angela, starts a relationship with Ricky
Angela Hayes: Jane's friend, really likes to talk about sex, the girl Lester is perving on
Ricky Fitts: Burnham families neighbor, drug dealer, weird guy who likes to film shit, dates Jane
Col. Frank Fitts: Ricky's dad, hates gay people, asshole
Buddy Kane: the dude that Carolyn starts an adulterous relationship with
Brad Dupree: Irrelevant. Lester's boss at work. Spends a lot of company money on prostitutes apparently.
American Beauty is quite the interesting film. Set in a suburban middle class neighborhood, the film is about "Lester Burnham, a 42-year-old advertising executive who has a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter's best friend, Angela" (stolen off of wikipedia). If that sounds fucked up, it's because it is.
Like other movies of its time (ex. Fight Club, which came out the same year), this movie focuses on a main character who has become disillusioned with his average, comfortable life. Lester Burnham is unhappy with his wife Carolyn, and he begins to fantasize about his daughter's best friend Angela after he sees her at a basketball game. In the beginning of the movie, Lester describes jacking off every morning as the highlight of his life. He is not sexually active, and his wife doesn't ever do anything with him. He hates his job and his boss. He describes himself as living in a coma, and he seems disconnected with everything. Pretty strange, considering he lives in a giant house in a nice suburban neighborhood.
After this quick intro and meeting Angela, you begin to see Lester go through a midlife crisis. He quits his job, trads in his Camry for a 1970 Pontiac Firebird, and starts to smoke weed. Lester has begun to feel alive again. Just like Tyler Durden in in Fight Club, moving out of his normal life is what has made him feel more alive. Maybe feeling a little bit of danger and excitement gives meaning to our lives, the movie seems to imply.
And it's not just him that has these feelings. His wife eventually starts cheating on him, and she is seen at her happiest when she is actively cheating on Lester. She even begins to shoot guns to relieve her stress.
Angela is a horny ass teenager who talks about sex all the time. She notices Lester's interest towards her, and she begins to lead him on. She talks about having sex with Lester in front of Jane all the time, causing her relationship with Jane to wane. (yeah no shit that's actually fucked up lol)
Lester's neighbor, Frank Fitts, a guy who served as a ranking official in the U.S. army, is shown to secretly support the Nazis. He also hates gay people so much that he even kills Lester when he suspects that Ricky and Lester are in a gay relationship.
Frank's son, Ricky, is a drug dealer who also likes to film random shit. He films other people without their knowledge, and he is widely believed to be a psychopath. He's kinda a fucked up dude, as his dad physically abused him a lot and even sent him to a mental institution.
Yet, even with all this fucked up shit going on, the movie still seems to want you to enjoy the beauty in life. The greatest video that Ricky has ever filmed is just a trash bag floating in the wind (this is actually something that happened in real life, and it was one of the inspirations to make the movie). Ricky describes the bag as something that has unbelievable beauty, which is strange because its just a shitty plastic bag. Maybe the movie wants us to see that there can be beauty in every part of the world, even the trash.
The final monologue by Lester seems to further this point. "I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me; But it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes, I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much - My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain. And, I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."
Should you watch this movie?
It's hard to say. This movie won a bunch of awards. But at the same time, throughout the movie, there is always this feeling that something is off. The words the characters use when talking, the pitches of the voices, it all feels off. There's something in the way that everyone acts that causes the movie to feel as if it's taking place in an alternate universe.
But, to me, the movie still remains pretty interesting. It was fun for me to try to figure out what the fuck was going on. Maybe the Sam Mendes wanted this feel of the movie to replicate how off Lester feels.
And to it's credit, the movie's message still seems relevant today, even though it has been nearly 20 years since it came out. Modern shows like Yappie (by Wongfu Productions) still portray this unrest with a comfortable, suburban life.
Also there's some naked tits lol (fun fact, the actor of Jane was 16 when the movie was filmed so put your dick back into your pants)
But in general, if you want to watch a movie for fun and not to think, I don't think you would enjoy this movie. Go watch some Marvel or something.
Lester Burnham: the main character (the perv/guy who is bored of life)
Carolyn Burnham: Lester's wife, eventually cheats on Lester
Jane Burnham: Lester's daughter, friend of Angela, starts a relationship with Ricky
Angela Hayes: Jane's friend, really likes to talk about sex, the girl Lester is perving on
Ricky Fitts: Burnham families neighbor, drug dealer, weird guy who likes to film shit, dates Jane
Col. Frank Fitts: Ricky's dad, hates gay people, asshole
Buddy Kane: the dude that Carolyn starts an adulterous relationship with
Brad Dupree: Irrelevant. Lester's boss at work. Spends a lot of company money on prostitutes apparently.
American Beauty is quite the interesting film. Set in a suburban middle class neighborhood, the film is about "Lester Burnham, a 42-year-old advertising executive who has a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter's best friend, Angela" (stolen off of wikipedia). If that sounds fucked up, it's because it is.
Like other movies of its time (ex. Fight Club, which came out the same year), this movie focuses on a main character who has become disillusioned with his average, comfortable life. Lester Burnham is unhappy with his wife Carolyn, and he begins to fantasize about his daughter's best friend Angela after he sees her at a basketball game. In the beginning of the movie, Lester describes jacking off every morning as the highlight of his life. He is not sexually active, and his wife doesn't ever do anything with him. He hates his job and his boss. He describes himself as living in a coma, and he seems disconnected with everything. Pretty strange, considering he lives in a giant house in a nice suburban neighborhood.
After this quick intro and meeting Angela, you begin to see Lester go through a midlife crisis. He quits his job, trads in his Camry for a 1970 Pontiac Firebird, and starts to smoke weed. Lester has begun to feel alive again. Just like Tyler Durden in in Fight Club, moving out of his normal life is what has made him feel more alive. Maybe feeling a little bit of danger and excitement gives meaning to our lives, the movie seems to imply.
And it's not just him that has these feelings. His wife eventually starts cheating on him, and she is seen at her happiest when she is actively cheating on Lester. She even begins to shoot guns to relieve her stress.
Angela is a horny ass teenager who talks about sex all the time. She notices Lester's interest towards her, and she begins to lead him on. She talks about having sex with Lester in front of Jane all the time, causing her relationship with Jane to wane. (yeah no shit that's actually fucked up lol)
Lester's neighbor, Frank Fitts, a guy who served as a ranking official in the U.S. army, is shown to secretly support the Nazis. He also hates gay people so much that he even kills Lester when he suspects that Ricky and Lester are in a gay relationship.
Frank's son, Ricky, is a drug dealer who also likes to film random shit. He films other people without their knowledge, and he is widely believed to be a psychopath. He's kinda a fucked up dude, as his dad physically abused him a lot and even sent him to a mental institution.
Yet, even with all this fucked up shit going on, the movie still seems to want you to enjoy the beauty in life. The greatest video that Ricky has ever filmed is just a trash bag floating in the wind (this is actually something that happened in real life, and it was one of the inspirations to make the movie). Ricky describes the bag as something that has unbelievable beauty, which is strange because its just a shitty plastic bag. Maybe the movie wants us to see that there can be beauty in every part of the world, even the trash.
The final monologue by Lester seems to further this point. "I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me; But it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes, I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much - My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain. And, I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."
Should you watch this movie?
It's hard to say. This movie won a bunch of awards. But at the same time, throughout the movie, there is always this feeling that something is off. The words the characters use when talking, the pitches of the voices, it all feels off. There's something in the way that everyone acts that causes the movie to feel as if it's taking place in an alternate universe.
But, to me, the movie still remains pretty interesting. It was fun for me to try to figure out what the fuck was going on. Maybe the Sam Mendes wanted this feel of the movie to replicate how off Lester feels.
And to it's credit, the movie's message still seems relevant today, even though it has been nearly 20 years since it came out. Modern shows like Yappie (by Wongfu Productions) still portray this unrest with a comfortable, suburban life.
But in general, if you want to watch a movie for fun and not to think, I don't think you would enjoy this movie. Go watch some Marvel or something.
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