An outstanding movie looking at the mid-life crisis

Rating: 9/10 (23 September 2011)

This is one damn impressive movie. The advertisement caught me at first - a single rose draped across the naked belly of a woman, and then Triple J gave it a very high rating. At first I thought it would probably be a simple feel good movie, but it is far from that. In fact it is a very intelligent and deep movie with lots of imagery and a deep theme. The movie is about a pathetic man named Lester. He is in a boring job with a wife that cares little about him and a daughter that wishes he would be a role model. In fact, from the beginning of the movie we know that he is going to die. The movie does not let us know who is going to kill him, but the deeper we go into it, the more we come to understand the nature of his death and come to narrow down who will do it. Acceptance of oneself, strength in oneself, and the nature of beauty are the major themes of this movie, and we see this in the major characters. The wife is an important character because she is constantly searching for strength but never seems to find it. She is a real estate agent and wants to be like the King of real estate sales, he main competitor in the suburbs. By the end of the movie, we see her building herself up, learning what it means to be strong, only to collapse into a fit of hysteria at her husbands death. In fact, throughout the movie, the stronger that she becomes, the stronger those around her become and she can never actually reach the goal that she so much desires. Ricky is a guy who moves in next door. He is the character that has everything worked out. His father is a marine corps sergeant and has had to put up with brutal bashings by him. What this has done for him is make him appreciate life, and grow strong in himself. We learn that he has become a very competent dealer with people that owe him favours everywhere. What he knows though is that he knows beauty and he sees beauty in everything. At first we think that he is a pervert, but as we come to know him better, we come to learn that the reason he videos everything is that he wants to capture the beauty of the world around him. When we first see his room, we see a huge collection of video cassettes, and his pride and joy is the video of a plastic bag literally dancing in the wind. I can understand this passion, but as he says, recording it on video does not capture the beautify essence of nature, but rather creates an imperfect carbon copy, yet he desires to capture this beauty forever. Then it comes to the two girls, Jane and her best friend. Ricky tapes Jane constantly but ignores the girl who thinks she is beautiful. Jane considers herself ugly and her mother does little to help this. Her friend says that she gets off on people thinking that she is beautify because people who lust after her push her belief that she will be a model. Yet there is a hidden secret about this woman, and we learn it later in the movie when she professes to be a virgin. Jane never learns of this, but we see a big difference here. Jane has slept with Ricky and is very silent about it, while the other, who has never slept with anybody, but makes up stories goes into explicit details. Now Lester is the main focus of this movie, and he is the character that develops the most. He starts of a pathetic man who's only joy in life is tossing in the shower. Slowly, after seeing his daughter's friend for the first time, gains purpose in his life. He desires her, and when he learns that she desires him, he begins to exercise and to change. The exercise comes first, but he also meets Ricky and begins to buy drugs off of him. Slowly we see him become physically and mentally strong, and by the end of the movie he is standing up to his wife and being desired by the girl that he finds beautiful. His final words to her are, "yes, I am glad". He is then killed, but when he dies, and when Ricky finds him dead, he finds the smile of contentment on his face. Lester has died, but he has died a happy man. His life as been fulfilled. Thus this movie is about an epithany. Lester comes to learn and understand himself. He no longer cares that his wife is having an affair with the real estate king, nor does he desire his daughter's friend any more. He is simply content that he is who he is. As such, literature says that he must die. He has this epiphany and has reached the high point of his life. From this point on there is no more so his must die. Life cannot get any better than this so his life has ended and he moves on. This is different to other movies such as Bullsworth, where the main character has an epiphany yet still has things that he can do. Here he has reached the end, done everything that he needs to do, and thus can end life a happy man. The smile on his face when he dies shows us that he has finally fulfilled himself.