American Beauty was a great movie about reality vs appearance

Rating: 10/10 (26 May 2005)

American Beauty was a great movie about reality vs appearance. On the outside you have this fairly rich suburban family made up of Mr. and Mrs. Burnham, and then the daughter. If you are an outsider looking in, then you will think that they are the perfect American family, the parents have great jobs and the daughter is doing her own thing. But on the inside they are tearing at the seams. Mr. and Mrs. Burnham are one the verge of divorce. Mr. Burnham is having a fantasy about his daughter's friend. The daughter is seeing the next door neighbor who is into dealing drugs. Finally Mr. Burnham is into the drugs, which eventually leads to him getting shot at the end. The director is just showing that looks can be deceiving and that any family, no matter how they look to others, will have their problems and that there is no perfect family.