a family who were dealing with issues in their lives and how those issues affected the other family members.

Rating: 10/10 (24 October 2010)

My film choice was the movie American Beauty, which was about a family who were dealing with issues in their lives and how those issues affected the other family members. The father Kevin Spacey as Lester Burnham is working at a job he hates, his wife Annette Bening as Carolyn Burnham and his daughter Thora Birch as Jane Burnham don't really seem to like him and he is becoming depressed, until he starts developing an infatuation with his daughters friend Mena Suvari as Angela Hayes. Theme is the central insight, the one that explains the greatest number of elements in the movie and relates them to each other. The two major themes in American Beauty are the complexity of human relationship and Coming of age/loss of innocence/growing awareness.
The first theme is complexity of human relationships and this can been seen throughout the entire movie. The first example would be Lester, he is working at a job he isn't happy at, and he is unhappy at home but has to put on a show for the outside world. He then starts developing an infatuation with his daughter's friend Angela, he then realizes how unhappy he is and begins to change his life, he quits his job, he starts working out, buys a new car and even starts a habit of smoking weed. The second example of theme can be seen with Carolyn Burnham which is really big on putting on a show of her "perfect" life, she is a Realtor and isn't doing so well, she knows her husband and daughter our unhappy, and she starts to have an affair with the King of Reality trying to make her life more fulfilled. The third example of theme can be seen with Jane Burnham, as she is trying to figure out who she is, she starts liking the new neighbor boy Wes Bently as Ricky Fits, who ironically is the dads drug dealer and ultimately the one who gets him killed. The second theme is coming of age/loss of innocence/growing awareness, this can be seen among Angela she comes across as a beautiful girl, who knows a lot about sex yet is a virgin and wants her first time to be with Lester. This can also be seen with Jane and the experiences she is going through with her parents and the fighting amongst them, when she is trying to figure her life out, yet she comes across as the adult in the movie an example of this is when they are all eating dinner and Lester and Carolyn are having an argument and make her sit and become a part of it. Two techniques that were used are reflection, and repetition. The first one can be seen a few times, when Lester is at work and you see his reflection in the computer, another example is when Ricky is taping Jane and catches her reflection in the mirror. The second technique is repetition of the roses which increases the significance and symbolic power of the roses each time they appear. This is the quote which says it all "Look closely and you can find Beauty in anything - and it changed my life. I rose out of a long, deep depression and started out into the world. Sometimes there is so much Beauty in the world, I can't even stand it, and it feels like my heart is going to burst." I feel the overall importance of the themes; complexity of human relationships and coming of age/loss of innocence/growing awareness are important to this movie more so because this is everyday life, this is the true story of many homes, not everyone shows it, that is until they reach that breaking point.