American Beauty
We seldom go to the movies, but we do rent videos which means about a year later we find out what all the fuss is about when a movie is popular. American Beauty is the number one rental this summer. Its leading man won Academy awards and it won best picture of the year. I watched the picture totally involved and somewhat astonished. Is this what family life today is like?
The actors must have deserved their awards because, like a little girl playing with paper dolls, I wanted to take them in hand and shake my finger at them. “Don't you know any better way of behaving toward your husband, your wife, your parents, your children, your neighbors?”
The family lived in a house with a red door in the suburbs. The color red may have signified the anger inside the home. Husband and wife both have good jobs. Their teenaged daughter is on the cheerleading squad. Their yard didn't have a weed in it.
Yet, no one is happy. Kevin Spacey's character, Lester Burnham, works in advertising, but it is a job straight out of a Dilbert cartoon. He has worked there for fourteen years. He is being interviewed by an efficiency expert who has only been there a year. He is to decide whether Lester is necessary to the company.
His slender perfectionist wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening), is a real estate salesperson who puts enormous pressure on herself to succeed. No one would be influenced to go into real estate after watching her work to sell a house to two difficult customers. They were picky, and rude, both of them. Surely potential house buyers in Tiffin are more polite than they were.
Her chief competitor, Buddy Kane, has it figured out. “In order to be successful, one must project an image of success at all times.” In almost the only scene that could be called comedy, he backs off of his affair with Carolyn when they are discovered by Lester at the pick-up station of a fast food location where he works after quitting his job. “I have to protect my image.” Buddy says. What a phony!
Image making seems to be the guiding principle for Carolyn. At the wife's company party, the wife says. “I'm selling an image, lets try to act like a loving couple.” At home in the house alone in the afternoon when her husband tries again to make love to her, she backs off. “You'll get beer on the couch. It cost $4000 and it's upholstered in Italian silk!”
Jane, (Thora Birch), the only child in the family suffers from the tension in the family but her smart remarks make me cringe. Talking about her dad to her friend, “I know you think my dad's harmless, but he's doing serious psychological damage to me. I need a role model.”
Lester's family considers him a loser. He tries to put some joy in his life by fantasizing about Jane's best friend who aspires to be a model and boasts about her sexual exploits with photographers. He lifts weights to impress her. He jogs. He buys a new sports car.
At one point the wife Carolyn, very upset, tells her daughter, “You cannot count on anyone except yourself. Her daughter replies, “I don't feel like having a Kodak moment right now.” The mother comes right back at her, “You ungrateful little brat! Look at all we've given you.”
The saddest character is retired Colonel Frank Fitts, played by Chris Cooper. He has recently moved next door to the Burnhams. He is so fenced in by his prejudices and his suspicions of his son and his neighbors that he spends his day suffering. And polishing his car. His wife, played by Allison Janney, is so passive in this strict military disciplined household that she almost appears to be a ghost.
His son, Ricky, played by Wes Bentley, is the scariest person in the movie. Abused by his father and turned devious, he is intently curious, yet devoid of any emotions or any fear. It is as if he is a spectator in his own life. He is also a voyeur, photographing the Burnhams next door, especially the daughter.
We have certainly come a long way from the days of Ricky Nelson, and we are more honest about family dynamics, but is this new style better? Is it an accurate portrayal of the baby boomers who now have children of their own and are in their forties? Maybe I'm in denial. I would like to know if our readers have seen this movie. Perhaps those in our children's generation can tell me it is an exaggeration. I hope so.