An average review

Rating: 7/10 (17 October 2019)

As of now there are almost as many reviews on this site for this movie as for "The Godfather". Yet, you may have noticed that they are sharply divided (in the main) between those who love it and those who hate it. It would make an interesting PhD study to investigate the reasons why this is.
Me, I'm going to go for average. For sure, the movie is not as profound as it seems to suggest. There is, of course, a great deal of beauty in the world about us. Yet there is also a great deal of ugliness. It's important to know the difference between the two, I believe. One should love but one should also feel anger.
All the characters depicted in it have their flaws, apart, perhaps, from the gay couple, whom we never get to know much about. The central character, whose "flashback" we are watching, is Lester Burnham, played brilliantly by Kevin Spacey.
Lester is by no means perfect. For one thing, he is immature, perhaps even irresponsible. If he is angry, it's seldom directed into something worthwhile. He enjoys winding his wife up when he isn't sipping a beer, or smoking dope, or fantasizing about his daughter's best friend. Yet there is a sort of guileless honesty about him, a likeable charm, a flash of childish insurrection, which appealed to me and perhaps does to others. In short, he seems somewhat human, at least by comparison to the others. He is the worm that turned, though in truth he is still mostly a worm.
Lester is concerned that people are treating him as though he didn't exist. This touches on one of the major themes of the movie - connectivity. In the rush to live our modern lives we are losing touch with each other and to the natural world. Lester wants to go back to the time when his family were all connected, and he spends a lot of time gazing at a photograph which depicts it.
His wife Carolyn, playing equally brilliantly by Annette Bening, is a sexually frustrated go-getter (in a business sense). There is little doubt that she is "the boss", a fact which Lester resents (and, like many schoolkids awed by teacher, does whatever he can to irritate her). There is also little doubt that she has completely lost contact with her own family. She charges on, like Liberty leading the people, towards destinations and battlefields unknown. On the way she manages to get hold of a gun, which makes a lot of noise (well, it scared my cat) and looks dangerous.
Sullen, sulky Jane - the daughter (played by Thora Birch) - apparently hates her parents (and possibly most other people). Though a Freudian slip she makes suggests that she actually is fond of Lester but resents the fact that he pays so little attention to her (as opposed to the time he spends salivating over her best friend). At any rate, she too feels isolated.
The only other person I'll mention is Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), the new next-door neighbour with a fancy camera and a shrewd business sense for dealing in dope. You could call him "Mr Connectivity" since he seems to have the knack for finding beauty in almost everything, even Jane (and a plastic bag which dances provocatively in the wind). He has a strong influence on both Lester and Jane.
There you have it. People caught up in the whirlwind of life and in dire need of re-connecting. Not a hugely original theme (compare with Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"), but an important one nevertheless, and handled with considerable humour. Oh, and girls wallowing naked in rose petals. Seven out of ten.