Uncomfortably Interesting

Rating: 9/10 (22 August 2000)

Although I have yet to reach the stage of life that Lester is in, I nevertheless empathized with his character immediately. At the beginning of American Beauty, he is experiencing an awakening to the reality that is his life. His wife and daughter think he's inadequate and he feels useless at his job. But he finally asks himself why things have to be that way, and American Beauty unfolds.
The uncomfortable parts of the film are all slices of American life that should be familiar to just about anyone with eyes and ears, even if they cannot identify with them: the cold, military-style father-son relationship between Ricky and Frank; the suggestive flirtatious relationship between 17-year-old Angela and Lester.
Each character in the microcosm of American Beauty is somehow connected to Lester, and Lester himself warns in the very beginning that he will be dead in less than a year. But with this mix of dysfunctional characters, what is going to happen? A must see.