american beauty Essay

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American Beauty is the story of Lester Burnham’s life. Lester Burnham is a depressed middle-aged man stuck in a mid-life crisis who thinks of himself as a” “self-described loser, boring, faceless, and easy to forget”. Characters in this movie are his wife Carolyn, a determined real-estate broker who pays very little attention to her husband and their low self-esteem daughter Jane who is embarrassed by her parents. Lester’s life changes the night he goes to a high school basketball game to watch his daughter perform and ends up meeting his daughter’s friend Angela Hayes. Angela Hayes is a self-centered high school cheerleader. From the minute he was introduced to Angela he instantly grew a crystal clear crush towards Angela, which put Jane in complete discomfort seeing her father having this crush over her friend. As the movie continues, every time he is face to face with Angela, he has sexual fantasies about her. Which in my opinion I think it is not immoral to indulge in certain fantasies, as long as we don’t act out on them? As far as him having fantasies about Angela in particular, I think that is immoral only in the reasoning that Angela is his daughter’s friend and she is most likely underage. The Burnham’s have new neighbors, uptight Frank Fitts, USMC, his oblivious wife Barbara, and their son Ricky, obsessed with videotaping on his camcorder. The first encounter with his new neighbor, Frank see’s Lester running with a homosexual couple and makes a face as if he is sickened. A few days pass by, and the Burnham’s change course in their lives. Carolyn starts having an affair with her competitor, Buddy Kane. Jane holding back from hanging out with Angela as much starts getting into a romantic relationship with Ricky. Lester gets out of a state of depression and quits his job by blackmailing his boss for $60,000, trades in his old Toyota for his dream car a brand new 1970 Pontiac Firebird, starts working out to impress Angela, and begins smoking pot wiht his new drug dealing neighbor Ricky Fitts.
Frank Fitts getting cornered with his son’s relationship with Lester, starts searching through Ricky’s draws and collection of footage and finds a video of Lester weight lifting nude, which he has actually recording Jane. Seeing that video, his father comes to the conclusion that his son is gay. As the film continues, Lester finds out about his wife’s infidelities, and is completely calm about it. To which Carolyn is shocked about her husband’s reaction towards the situation. As the night proceeds Ricky
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