"American Beauty" vividly expresses the morbid state of a society that has developed to a certain stage for us to examine. This is an era of "appreciation of ugliness". Even in the late 1990s, a film was very vivid and showed the morbid state of "ugliness" to the world. And today, when we look back at the "American Beauty", we can't always feel that the society we live in is so beautiful, beautiful and ugly, and beautiful and sick.
Still starting from the "American Beauty" film itself, Lester Burham is the protagonist of our story. His family lives in a peaceful suburb. He has a beautiful wife, Caroline, and a minor daughter, Jenny. However, his family is not as happy as outsiders see. His wife has a successful career and has owned a real estate company of his own, but he has not achieved any success at work. He has been working for an advertising company for 14 years. He is tired of his work. I believe his wife must think he is a loser, because they have not touched each other for years. Finally one day, when Leicester met Jenny and Angela, who had just finished the middle school basketball cheerleading team, he was immediately moved by Angela’s beauty. The long-dead feeling in his heart seemed to be restored again. Burning this must be the "American beauty" in this man's heart. From then on, Leicester's life began to change: he bravely faced the boss and quit his job, he began to pay attention to his own image, and bought some good marijuana smoking from Rich. He fell into the middle of life. A love trap for an underage girl. His wife, Caroline, spends all her energy on her career. She looks like a confident business woman, but her feelings are eager for comfort. At the same time, Caroline also reacted to the changes in Leicester. She began to have an affair with the real estate agent "King". The situation gradually developed in a very interesting but unexpected direction, until one day she misunderstood her neighbor, the Navy. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Frank raised his gun and pointed it at Leicester.
That's right, Lester died just like that, with a satisfied smile on his face.
Many film critics mentioned the plastic bags in the video, the plastic bags flying in the wind, thinking that it has the same effect as the feathers in "Forrest Gump", but I have a little other opinion on this point. I personally think that the plastic bag in "American Beauty" represents a person’s soul who desires to be liberated from the confinement of society to release his "humanity", while in "Forrest Gump" it is a kind of liberation. It's a casual, a leap like the "American Dream", so we can see from here that the same liberation has different ways, let alone complicated people!
"Your eyes are tired, tired, close your eyes." The same is the words of Freud, as the end of the film review, we are sometimes tired when we live, so we might as well think about what we are really looking for. An approval, a smile, and a hug. Perhaps what we need most is precisely the true self.
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