A taut dissection of the soft underbelly of American life.

Rating: Null/10 (17 May 2002)

SPOILERS! American Beauty is not a literal story. It is an allegory and, I believe, a powerful one. It is a taut dissection of American life, mores and the ascendance of appearance and `spin' over what is real. The film is set in `Anytown', America; people's lives are apparently neat and well ordered. Look at the interior shots, just about every one shows an almost unreal tidiness. The film then scratches the surface and gradually reveals the disorder and hypocrisy hidden behind the layers of veneer.
The film deals with appearance verses reality; The marriage that is a sham, the nympho who is a virgin, the drug dealer, Ricky, who fakes his drug test, the `liaison' between the Lester and Ricky that is not what it seems, the homophobe who is in fact homosexual. The distinction is cleverly blurred further, with the dream sequences and Lester's desire for the girl that, once he has the opportunity to fulfil, he realises that this was fantasy.
It is no coincidence that Lester sells advertising space: advertising deals is generating perceptions that are generally not in total accordance with reality. Even when Lester is fired what is important is that he can use a lie, of a sexual advance, to secure better terms; it doesn't matter what happened it is what he can get people to believe that is important.
Remember what the real estate salesman says; to be successful first you must appear successful; appearance before reality. Angela wants to become a model, this is the height of her ambition, she wants to have breast enhancement surgery to improve her chances, she is obsessed by how she looks both physically and, by bragging about her sexual experiences, socially. She is transfixed by her appearance because that is what society expects.
How a sofa looks, and what it cost is seen by Carolyn as more important than the opportunity to redeem her marriage when, fuelled by beer, Lester makes an advance. She has failed to achieve success; with her job and her husband; her daughter is a disappointment. She seeks solace in an affair with a successful (in a small town way) man; the `King of Real Estate'. If you cannot be successful then get close to someone who is.
Colonel Fitts is the archetypal hard-bitten military disciplinarian who rails against homosexuals, as we find out, the image that he projects to the world is a sham.
After he is fired, Lester tries to recapture his lost youth (innocence) a simpler time, and in some sense, he is redeemed. Lester begins to care less about appearances and starts to live as he wants, symbolised by the new car and the change in music at dinner. He has become a man with nothing to lose and happier than before.
The sanest people are in fact the ones that live outside the constraints of society; the drug dealer, who makes a living from enabling his clients, who are `respectable citizens', to escape reality and the daughter, Jane, who wants to live as a `freak'. Ricky is the character, who, as the film's tag line says, takes a closer look. He becomes Lester's personal hero by not conforming.
The film puts under the microscope America's obsession with success, money and appearance; the conclusion is that these obsessions are vacuous and corrupting.