American Beauty

American Beauty

There continues to be an everyday struggle for us American’s to find out true identities. There are so many people in our society who feel the necessity to be someone they are not, in order to fit in. Only if they had a mirror; then they could look and see the fear and insecurity in their eyes. There are some situations where putting on a act twenty-four hours a day is a bit too much. For many, the suburban life is the America dream. For others, however, it can turn into a twisted nightmare of unfulfilled desires. American Beauty, nonetheless, is a movie that gives the viewers backstage passes to see how the most perfect family, living in the flawless suburbs can really turn out to be. It’s our typical family with both a working husband (Lester) and wife (Carolyn). They have a beautiful teenager by the name of Jane, who‘s friends with your typical high school gossip girl (Angela). There are many significant others to the movie like the new family that just moved next door, or the top real estate agent who calls himself “The King”. There were so many different conflicts and alterations between the characters that made this movie so interesting to the viewers. American Beauty was a movie that shows us how our American society portrays the all American family to have the perfect relationships with one another. Little do the outsiders know about what really goes on inside the walls of the perfect household, and how they act towards each other. American Beauty is about the masks we wear in our society. Each character seems to wear there own masks during the movie for their own reasons. Whether they are dealing with their work, family, or just life in general.

The father/husband of the supposedly “All American Family” seems to be hiding under the infamous “mask“ throughout the movie. He lives a life where he is constantly overpowered by his wife and co-workers day by day. Lester wakes up everyday only to show the community that he cares about his wife Carolyn, but when he really knows his relationship has taken a turn for the worse. He makes the community think that he is this funny, caring, and entertaining husband when he sees no reason to be. A real estate party was being held at a hall for all the real estate agents of the community. Before the party Carolyn told him just to act like a normal, caring, and be a husband of interested. H...

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...oulders. She was one step further to finding her true identity.

Mother and daughter relationships are a bit different then father to daughter relationships. Carolyn has a more realistic relationship with Jane than Lester. Even though Carolyn tries to keep her unidirectional relationship with Lester out of Jane’s life. She wants Jane to think everything is just perfect between the three of them, when in reality it isn’t close to perfection. During a scene at the dinner table, Lester all of a sudden has an outburst of anger and throws the dinner plate across the room. He then starts arguing with Carolyn in front of their only child. Jane could not stand to see her parents like this so she left. Although Carolyn did feel bad that her daughter had to see that, she should not have tried to hide their feelings for each other from their little girl. By her trying to have Jane thinking everything was fine and having Jane see that sudden outburst was not right. It was her responsibility as a mother to keep Jane on task with her social life, school, friends and any family problems. She obviously failed to keep up with that task considering the conditions Jane has been put up against.