Complex, Yet Simple

Rating: 8/10 (20 October 2019)

The movie revolves around a 40 something man (named: Lester Burnham = Kevin Spacey) who is dominated by his real estate agent wife and is lost when interacting with his teenage daughter (Jane Burnham played by Thora Birch). The funny thing is: he does not think he is lost, but he feels that his daughter and his wife both consider him worthless. He hates his job: yearns for self-worth even at workplace. To sum it up, the character starts deeply unsatisfied, sad and disillusioned about his life.
His wife (Carolyn Burnham: Annette Bening): a 40 something real estate agent is shown to be this 'act' cool wife who struggles to sell homes and tries to motivate herself - screaming, talking to herself, pepping up her early mornings with motivational chants etc. She is someone who believes she has seen troubled times, has understood struggle and accumulated as she struggled.
They have a nice house, they have the luxury and everything else which you associate with a happy household. But things are up to the mark. This is where the movie adds up layers while explaining their character traits even more.
****** spoiler follows:
Frank goes to his daughter's cheerleading sessions during one of the games, apparently disinterested. He persists with it on his wife's insistence. She reminds him of his growing disconnect with his daughter. And he agrees, but seems to be not in the mood to care or address the issue - he still hangs around.
When he gets bedazzled by this young, blonde cheerleader friend of his daughter. What follows is a reaction in which he yearns for contact, reimagines sex and gets excited to masturbate thinking about her, while his wife is sleeping next door.
This friend Angela (played by Mena Suvrai) also has an interesting philosophy - life is all about exploring and soaking all the attention. She appears to be comfortable with people admiring and wanting her, people even thinking about her and engaging with themselves. So she clearly appears strong headed and tells Jane (daughter : Thora Birch), that she would love to get attention even from her dad, who she thinks is interesting. Why, despite appearing under confident, does she engage with Jane's dad? Is she exploratory? or is she seeking adventure.
Intertwined with Angela and Jane is another peeing tom, their new neighbor (Ricky Fitts: played by Wes Bentley) who goes to the same high school, has a retired military father who is strict Christian Texan - in that order. Now, Ricky's life is from his video camera which he uses to capture his world. He follows Jane and captures her from her bedroom window. He keeps recording and when confronted does not get awkward or does not hide his activities.
His matter of factly response to situations catches Jane's attention. She admires his confidence. She admires the fact that he is outright confident and does not feel the need to defend his actions, when confronted. She admires him also because she is not confident about her own actions, which makes her stay and draw upon the more confident Angela. After her interactions with Ricky, she starts getting interested in him.
Stories move on and characters keep developing layers. The climax is an interaction of these characters which is not critical to the beauty of the movie. It is interesting but does not drive the Oscar.