Once More with Feeling
American Beauty is a 1999 movie directed by Sam Mendes about a man who discovers himself while going through an abnormal mid-life crisis. On the surface the Burnham family looks like a normal family, they live in the suburbs, they have traditional jobs, and they have a typical angry teenager, but under the surface each member is simply waiting to be alive. Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a mild mannered man in his forties who wakes up one day and decides to change his life, and stop sleepwalking through his life’s endeavor. Lester was sick of working all day at his job at a cubicle farm and coming home to his dysfunctional family and overbearing wife. When he decides to take control of his life Lester quits his job, blackmails his boss, and stands up to his wife. Lester soon becomes obsessed with his high school daughter’s friend, Angela Hayes, and begins to improve his physical physique in order to attract her attention. Meanwhile his daughter, Jane, becomes curious about their new neighbor, Ricky Fitts, who seems captivated by her and has begun frequently videotaping her from afar. Lester and his daughter’s voyeur soon become friends when Ricky becomes his drug dealer, and we are introduced to Ricky’s father, Colonel Fitts, who is a homophobic and draconian father. Aggravated with her husband’s recent awakening, Carolyn Burnham finds her own form of rebellion by beginning an affair with her idol Buddy Kane, the “king” of real estate. After discovering his wife’s infidelity, Lester is pursued by the Colonel, who he turns down, and Lester pursues Angela further only to discover that she had in fact been living a lie of promiscuity and was a virgin in over her head. Conversely, Jane and Ricky have taken it to the next level and are planning to run away together when a shot in the night stops them in their tracks. The movie culminates in the picturesque Burnham suburban house turned murder scene, when Lester is shot, ending his new found life.
In American Beauty, initially Lester is weighed down by a depression stemming from his lack of purpose and ability to find beauty in the world. In the opening narration Lester explains, “I am 42 years old; in less than a year I will be dead. Of course I don't know that yet, and in a way, I am dead already.”This casual way of looking at death is a very existential idea and is proliferated throughout the movie mainly by Lester and his deathly state. His life leading up to his mid-life crisis is not really a life at all, he is simply going through the motions and letting time slip slowly away. In Lester’s job description he states that, "My job consists of basically masking my contempt for the assholes in charge, and, at least once a day, retiring to the men's room so I can jerk off while I fantasize about a life that doesn't so closely resemble Hell." Lester feels as if he is already living in Hell so the idea of death is almost insignificant to him because It wouldn‘t be much of a change. His life experiences of life only containing anger, insecurity, and confusion lead him to have a very matter of fact way of looking at death; this casualness about his indifference toward life or death is exemplified by statements he frequently makes on the subject, such as when he said, “Remember those posters that said, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life"? Well, that's true of every day but one - the day you die.” Throughout American Beauty, Lester proliferates the existential concept that life and death are meaningless distinctions of the same thing, fate.
American Beauty is conversely sprinkled with overwhelming insights in the ability to find beauty in the world despite the overwhelming presence of existential beliefs. A character’s ability to find beauty in the world displays their capacity to assume control over their fate and combat the existential ideas that nothing they do matters. Death is essential in granting life meaning, without death life would be trivial because nothing that lasts forever is precious. Ricky is the character who most often is able to strip away the world’s rubber shielding and connect to the beautiful copper wire that lies within. Ricky’s unique ability is exemplified in his choices of film subjects and the stories he chooses to tell about them. When Angela asks Ricky why he is filming a dead bird he responds, “because it is beautiful,” showing the intertwined nature of death and an appreciation of life. Ricky’s seemingly excessive videotaping is a way for him to remember all of the good in the world, as he explains to Jane, “Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in.” Throughout the movie we follow Lester and the evolution of his ability to similarly identify what is truly beautiful about being alive. The movie culminates with Lester’s final realization,
“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... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday.”
Through his existentialism lens he is still able to identify that while life will always ultimately end that does not render it meaningless and that every moment of life is precious even if in the grand scheme of the universe it is insignificant, it can still hold great meaning to you. The imminence of his death allows him to reflect on his life and appreciate it, an inevitable sensation he insists is a part of dying, further supporting that life and death are intertwined, and that life is substantiated by the presence of death.
Overall I quite enjoyed American Beauty, it was a thoroughly engaging movie and it’s twisted plot fascinated me. I loved the perversion of the various characters and the surprise murdered at the end of the film. Although I was able to predict some of the “surprises” such as Angela’s status as a virgin and the Colonel's homosexuality, I was still pleased with how they played out. Kevin Spacey did a fabulous job portraying Lester and it was hilarious to watch a originally mild-mannered man do a complete one-eighty and take control of his life. My biggest problem with the film was the romantic relationship between Lester and Angela. The idea that Lester’s main motivation throughout the movie was to have sex with his teenage daughter’s best, and only, friend was creepy and the premise grossed me out. Though I was able to find comedy in the absurdity of the lengths Lester was willing to go, and such saving grace lines as, “I want to look good naked!” I enjoyed the relationship between Jane and Ricky,though I found Ricky the more interesting of the two. Ricky was my favorite character because his ability to find the beauty in the seemingly bland world surrounding him is a skill I aspire to perfect, not to mention I found him funny in the scenes in which he backhandedly makes fun of his father, and most of all I liked how he was able to be sweet and creepy with his voyeurism at the same time. Overall, I would award American Beauty five out of five stars and recommend it to anyone who is looking for a night of laughs and thought provoking cinema!
