The film American Beauty is about a man by the name of Lester Burnham,

Rating: Null/10 (13 September 2012)

The film American Beauty is about a man by the name of Lester Burnham, played by Kevin Spacey, whose life has become stagnant and his marriage has become a depressed life of lies. The film takes the audience through the next few days of Lester's life where he does everything possible to get his life and dignity back after being stuck in a loveless marriage and a job that gives him no satisfaction. Lester's wife, Carolyn Burnham is played by Annette Benning; his daughter Jane is played by Thora Birch; and her friend Angela, who becomes the center of Lester's infatuation is played by Mena Suvari. Each of these actors fits well into their characters and portrays the theme of the film perfectly.
The theme of the film is that happiness can be found by looking closer at the things and people around you; seeing people for who they are and material possessions for what they are. This theme is portrayed through the eyes of Lester and is highlighted by the depression he struggles through from the beginning of the film. When Lester finally finds something that in his depressed eyes is worth being happy about, which is Angela, the director focuses on this through the length of the film. To emphasize Lester's direct thoughts when he is fantasizing about Angela there is a change in the sound during that particular scene. During moments of Lester's thoughts the sound includes a few low ambient sounds with a very low tempo. This creates a very surreal feeling that takes the viewer inside the thoughts of Lester.
Lester's depression is used as a motif that further emphasizes the overall theme of the film. Without the depression it is unlikely that any of the events would have taken place as Lester likely would have felt much happier in this marriage from the beginning. This is also noticed when viewing the character of Col. Frank Fits, played by Chris Cooper, and his wife Barbara Fits, played by Allison Janney; these two have some obvious problems in their marriage that do not become inherently clear until the end of the film when we find that Frank is gay and has been hiding this his entire life. In doing so he has pushed away both his son and his wife. As with Lester and his family, who could have had a happy marriage if they each could have looked beyond each other's facade and saw who they were inside; so to could Frank and his wife had been happy, even if that meant they were no longer married because he finally admitted he was gay. We see this same scenario present in many films. For example, in Gran Torino, though having a bit of a different theme, we see a character in this film disliking people because of their race, which in turn causes that person great anger; however, toward the end of the film he has seen these people for who they are and enjoys moments of happiness for the first time.