Barbie's Ken has just become Action-Man

Rating: Null/10 (29 February 2000)

A truly excellent example of how everyone has a skeleton in their closet and how sooner or later someone opens the door and gets killed in the avalanche of bones.
What an amazing assortement of characters in this one little suburban street of anywhere, America. There's the man in midlife suppressed in his individuality by his wife's obsession to be better than everyone else......the spoilt daughter who has everything materialistically she could want (molded in mother's image there) but can't feel loved because it wasn't a priority growing up ......... a young man physically and psychologically abused by his father looking for a way out and only finding it in a fantasy world of drugs and video moments, not reality ....... a pompous little pretty girl who thinks the world was created so she would have an audience to bask in her percieved magnificence......a wife who self medicates her depression instead of confronting her husband's demons....... and a gay couple.
The above paragraph strangely enough could also have come from my personal journal describing neighbours, work colleagues and relatives. I have seen discovered secrets ruin many lives around me and I am a "Lester" of sorts. What you see is what you get, no pretences and certainly no excuses. This guy was the embodiment of myself taken to the nth degree in everyway, he is my hero.
When you are losing the game of life, playing by society's rules do as he did ..........reinvent the game so you can win on your terms and make losers out of the other participants.
What was the most important realisation in the film? Look at the 2 most underused characters in the film......the 2 jims. The screenplay glides by these 2, not because the film has nothing to say about homosexuality, but because the film is about what destroys souls........not being true to yourself destroys you. These 2 had no skeletons, no secrets, no "appearances of success" apart from reality. There was nothing beyond their appearance, nothing to strip away and therefore by movie's end they were the only characters that wouldn't have to forever change their attitudes......everyone else had to take stock and wake up to themselves.
Lesters of the world unite !!!! ......now where is that personell office address for my work? I'm starting my "I Rule!" job description paper today!