Don't get it? Look Closer.....

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2000)

There is so much beauty in this movie, sometimes I feel I just can't take it! WOW! Excellent, poignant take on today's America!! I don't know where to begin really.
First of all, those that exclaim the following: "I didn't get it", "that's grossly exaggerated", etc.", follow the movie's tag-line: Look Closer. Those that still don't get it, you might as well be Carolyn Burnham. As far as the characters being grossly exaggerated? I feel that they're not too far from who and what we REALLY are. No? Well, pick up a newspaper and read what's going on in America folks! Look Closer!
This movie, in combination with "Fight Club" and abstractly speaking, "The Matrix", comments on how American society has stifled itself spiritually and humanely. To me, three characters represent three aspects of our incredibly dysfunctional system: Angela (Mena Suvari)- looks-oriented/shallow, Carolyn Burnham (Annette Benning)- overly career-minded and materialistic, Colonel Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper)- ignorant and judgemental. Isn't it mildly ironic to point out that the remaining three characters (Lester, Jane and Ricky), are, more or less, chastised for being who they are and doing the things they do while all along, they are the ones that have some semblance of humanity?
Americans that feel this movie is beyond comprehension feel so because they, most likely, are embroiled within themselves and their careers and, essentially, the "bottom line". Though written by an American (Alan Ball), it should be more of a compliment that UK director Sam Mendes can 'Look Closer' into our society and with his British expatriate stance and outer vision, tell us what we've become...or are becoming.