Lester as he fantasizes about Angela Hayes, a teenage girl who he becomes infatuated with, while the world around him starts going into slo-mo, and rose petals appear.
In the beginning, we get a voice over from Lester telling us that he will be dead one year from now. This doesn't really mean much right away, but as the film goes on, it becomes clear that he is slowly spiraling into disaster, but it is never really clear what it is that will get him killed in the end.
Lester promises he is trying to hurry, just as his briefcase falls open and spills papers everywhere.
On the surface, Lester appears to have the perfect life, a good job, loving wife and daughter, a beautiful house with a white picket fence, but in reality, none of that is true. Except for the house of course, he doesn't actually have any of these things. He is unhappy, his job wants him fired, he and his wife don't love each other, his daughter hates him, and he just feels like crap all the time. But just when things seem their worst, he goes to see his daughter's cheer routine at her high school. There he sees Angela Hayes, a friend of his daughter, who he immediately becomes obsessed with, despite her being young. After this, every time he sees her, he has visions of her doing extremely provocative things, such as taking off her clothes and inviting him to bathe with her. All of these scenes are accompanied by the color red in some way, usually in the form of rose petals.
Most scenes with Lester in them have red incorporated in some way. (Notice all the red papers and folders and things on his desk)
The more he thinks about Angela, the more red there is. During fantasies such as this one, there is hardly anything that ISN'T red.
His daughter's story is quite similar to his, although I imagine she would hate to admit that. His daughter Jane is right smack in the middle of that stage where she is too cool for her parents, and no matter what they do she hates it. The only friend she seems to have is Angela, who only seems to hang out with her so she can brag about her extensive sexual escapades.
This shot does a good job of showing how different Angela (right) and Jane (left) are. Angela is always up front and confident, and Jane is far less confident and is very reserved.
Early on, it is shown that Jane has a stalker of some sort, who keeps filming her. Later we discover that it is her next door neighbor, Ricky Fitts, who has been doing the filming. Despite Jane noticing him filming her on multiple occasions, he continues to film her whenever he can, one time even in broad daylight in the middle of the school courtyard.
"I'm not obsessing. I'm just curious." -Ricky Fitts
He is a total outcast, and doesn't seem to do anything besides record stuff with his video camera, which he can almost always be seen holding in front of his face. His room is filled wall to wall with tapes and other recording equipment, all funded by his drug dealing. Jane, being somewhat of an outcast as well, is immediately drawn to him, despite all his strange behavior towards her. His strange behavior juxtaposes well with his father, Colonel Fitts. Fitts senior is a military veteran, as well as a homophobe. He hates his new neighbors, who happen to be a gay couple. He catches Ricky over at Lester's house at one point, but what he sees rocks him to the core. From his window Colonel Fitts sees what appears to be Ricky performing sexual acts with Lester. Of course, in reality, that is not the case, but Fitts immediately goes on the offensive.
Colonel Fitts kicks his son out of the house.
Fitts immediately confronts Ricky, and forces him to confess. But rather than admit that he is selling drugs to Lester, he lies, and says exactly what his father wants him to say. That he is in fact gay, and that he isn't ashamed at all. He then leaves and asks Jane to run away with him, and she agrees.
Carolyn Burnham may seem happy, but she is actually just as distraught as Lester.
Carolyn's story is the weakest in my opinion, but hers is still very important to the story. Carolyn wears the guise of a bubbly suburban mom, who loves her rose garden and is passionate about her job as a real estate agent. In reality she is sexually frustrated, is very stressed out in her job, and hates Lester's guts, to say the least. Her rival is the self proclaimed real estate king, Buddy Kane. After meeting him face to face, she starts to become attracted to him. After she finds out that he is divorced, she almost immediately begins having an affair with him.
Lester discovers Carolyn's affair while working at a fast food joint.
Even though this film is somewhat split between three stories, they all converge near the end. In the final act of the movie, Angela is over at Lester's house, spending the night with Jane. Lester is home, working out in the garage. Carolyn is out, presumably with Buddy, and Ricky is on his way over to Lester's as well. After a heated argument between Jane, Ricky, and Angela, Angela storms off downstairs, leaving Ricky alone with Jane. Carolyn is also shown driving home, listening to self help tapes, telling her not to be a victim. She is also seen holding a gun, which she probably intends to use to shoot Lester.
Throughout the most of the movie, Lester has been working out, in an attempt to impress Angela.
While Lester is working out, he sees someone outside his garage door. Once he opens it, we see it is Colonel Fitts. Fitts stands in the pouring rain silently, and only comes in after Lester invites him. Fitts then slowly approaches Lester and hugs him. Lester is confused by this, but goes along with it, as he sees that Fitts is very upset. Fitts then slowly leans in to kiss Lester, which takes him by totaly surprise, and once Lester pushes him off, Fitts slowly leaves.Lester then goes inside and finds Angela, who seduces him. Of course Lester is game, but once they are about to "begin," Angela confesses that she is a virgin, and that she is terrified, and Lester stops and they never actually go all the way.
Lester lays dead on the kitchen floor.
Because of this, the two of them retreat to the kitchen, and Angela goes to freshen up in the bathroom. While she is away however, someone comes in and shoots Lester in the back of the head. At the time we think it was Carolyn, but immediately after this, is shows Carolyn arrive at home, and one she discovers Lester dead on the floor, immediately starts sobbing and crying. It turns out that it was actually Colonel Fitts who pulled the trigger, is his state of confusion, sadness and anger after losing his son. The movie then ends, after showing everyone in the house's reactions to Lester's death.
I enjoyed this film, but it took me a while to get into it. The first hour-ish of the film sells it short somewhat, there is a lot going on and the story seems to wander about. The film is infinitely stronger once the three stories converge. At that point the film becomes very absorbing. I usually don't like rating a film out of five because I think it is a bad way to show the quality of the film, but if pressed, I'd give this film a three and a half out of five.
Works Cited
American Beauty. Dir. Sam Mendes. Perf. Kevin Spacey. Dreamworks, 1999. DVD.
Barsam, Richard Meran., and Dave Monahan. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film. Fourth ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.
Photos
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