surprising reactions...

Rating: 9/10 (30 November 2001)

I was truly surprised reading the reactions of fellow IMDB patrons who didn't like this movie. I did. The main reason I liked this movie, for those that didn't get "it," is that the movie is about looking closer to find the true beauty of things and finding one's self.
Most of you have probably heard a plot summary, but I will cover it briefly. Lester Burnham is a middle-aged man in an unhappy job & an unhappy marriage to Caroline. He has lost touch too with his daughter, Jane.
He is just going through the motions. Until one day, a quest with lust awakens him.
The new next door family to the Burhmans is the Fitts family. Comprised of a comatose mother (who epitomizes the furthest extreme of losing one's self completely) a homophobic ex-Marine and their son, a quiet, confident young man with a hidden source of strength.
The movie is mainly shot from Lester's point of view. But is deals quite a bit with superficial things in our society and how obsessed we become with them. A perfect example, Lester tries to get romantic with Caroline, they are on the sofa and just as he's about to make contact, she notices a beer bottle that he is about to spill. She tells him he's gonna spill some beer on the sofa. He says, "so what?! it's just a sofa!" and she says oh no it's not. It's an Italian, hand painted silk sofa! He retorts, "IT'S JUST A SOFA! and it's become more important to you than living, we'll that's just crazy." and it is. That is part of the message of this movie. Stupid, blind materialism in a world that perhaps, now more than ever, we know isn't a sure thing. This movie tries to say to those that heard it, live now, tomorrow is a gift you don't have.
Anyway, I thought it did a great job of saying that and was much less preachy than I!