The process of watching "American Beauty" will not make people easy. Although the life there is more or less comedy, I believe that no one can simply laugh it off after watching it. This film is like a sharp dagger piercing the viewer's chest, cruel and decisive. The cold light reveals faint blood, but also the warmth of life. If life is a grand show, the people in it are actors who have no choice, and American Beauty is a drama with a tragic climax at the end, not a comedy. We can see beauties in movies, but we should also see the unbearable sorrows hidden behind life through them.
No one can avoid the crisis of middle age. As long as you live to the corresponding age, it will come to you uninvited, and it will stay for a long time. Lester is such a weak man. His relationship with his wife is not harmonious. His only daughter seems to have matured too early. Even his stable job is in danger of losing. that one. Whether it is caused by his own factors or the test of life, in fact, Lester was not the kind of person who broke the jar at the beginning, and perhaps more responsibility should be shared with others. It's just that who should bear the pain of Leicester the most, I'm afraid it can only be a headless unsolved case, just like in the end we can't be completely sure who the deadly bullet came from. Same as the muzzle. Lester seemed to live an awkward life, his wife and daughter looked down on him, and he had to comfort himself, with a hint of cynicism. He can quit his job with dignity, but he can't quit his responsibilities, but when he caught his wife and the "Prince of Real Estate" in the car, he was very calm. Lester has been trying to find his own direction, but this direction is not easy to find, just like the perfect demeanor is difficult to maintain for a long time.
And Caroline, who was also infected with her husband's problems, was also unhappy at work and had nowhere to vent her depression, so she had to continue her bad life and let the uncontrolled state flood into disaster. Although she still knows how to find some beautiful things to comfort herself, such as those roses planted in the yard, the power of roses is still too small. Compared with the problem of harassment in groups in life, a gorgeous flower cannot solve the essential problem after all. Caroline pinned all her ideals on work, and selling a house was her greatest wish, but ironically, this house was just as unpopular as her own life. In fact, the house is not bad, maybe it's just that people's requirements are too high and unreasonable. Caroline's derailment is really helpless. In fact, her relationship with the "real estate prince" is no different from the relationship between her daughter and "nervous boy" Ricky. They are all looking for a kind of sustenance, and what they get is actually It's not real love, it's just a kind of joy like love.
Compared with the midlife crisis of adults, Jenny and Angela, two girls who are not enough to cope with the world, also have eyes that look at the world coldly. However, rather than saying that Jenny was troubled by family life, it would be better to say that her youthful rebellion needed a way to release, and the messy family life was just a catalyst. Jenny was very reticent. On the one hand, she had no one to talk to who could understand her, and on the other hand, she took the initiative to close the door on her own. It's not that Lester didn't talk to her, but Jenny's indifferent refusal made the father helpless. Understanding and caring are what Jenny wants and what people around her lack. Jenny couldn't be as flirtatious as Angela, so she kept silent step by step until she met her own kind, Ricky.
And Angela, who has always been by Jenny's side, although outsiders thought she was a rambunctious girl, she has always been deliberately showing her talent in this area, whether in words or actions, she is used to showing her own Charming talent. But until the end, her mask was lifted by Lester. Angela's painstakingly managed and maintained image was just a means to hide her lonely heart. She deceived everyone, but not herself. She is afraid of loneliness, but it seems that this is not enough to be the whole reason for her to do this. As for other reasons, there is no way to know. But having a plan to become another self may help a person forget the pain that has always existed in life, and Angela may be thinking that way. Her sexiness withered at the last moment, she was no more open than her good friend Jenny, on the contrary, she was perhaps more orthodox than Jenny. In the movie, Angela seems to be the only one who displays a happy and indifferent attitude most of the time, but unfortunately, she doesn't end up being the warm touch in this movie. Maybe only from the life of the comrades, we can see some beautiful elements, but such beauty is difficult to be recognized by most people.
Some people are crazy, some people are calm, and when the Leicester family staged a duel of reason and emotion, Ricky was always by the side and made a truthful record. His behavior was incomprehensible to others, and he was a little too neurotic, but in fact, the people around him were also more or less neurotic, but Ricky was the most obvious. Ricky has a paranoid obsession with death, not unrelated to his tight-knit family. The father's near-strict discipline did not actually restrain his son's heart. On the contrary, it directly led to Ricky's behavior becoming more and more eccentric and stereotyped, and he became a hidden drug dealer. Ricky faithfully uses images to record everything, and although images are life itself, it unconsciously magnifies the absurdity and ridiculousness in life. Maybe everyone's chaotic life is not as simple and pure as that plastic bag dancing in the wind. If anyone can live as pure as a white plastic bag, it may be envied by the people around them, but this is almost only an illusion in the face of reality.
Relatively speaking, Ricky's parents seem to live a more simple life than others. Their life seems to always be flat, except for the eccentric son, which is a boring family life. But everyone is not a simple plane. As a three-dimensional existence, people cannot avoid various troubles. Frank is a standard soldier, and he implements the military's style with some rudeness. His attitude towards the people around him is colder than that of his son. He looks down on the comrades who live next door, and he doesn't understand the appearance of the Lester family. He didn't even have a wife in his life, he put all his energy into controlling Ricky, preventing his son from taking drugs again, preventing his son from deviating, and preventing his son from becoming gay, as if he was entrusting the rest of his life to on his son. Frank's words and deeds were full of grim tones, which directly led to the depression of the family atmosphere. If the Lester family's repression was blatant, then the Frank family's repression was so restrained that people couldn't even go crazy. Frank does not allow discordant notes in his life, so he dares to send his disobedient son to a mental hospital for two full years. But this most masculine character was also disguised by a biased misunderstanding. A kiss that caught Lester by surprise revealed the secret that the soldier had been carrying for so many years and finally couldn't bear it.
Unlike Frank's rage, Ricky's mother, Barbara, is almost another extreme, a woman who barely speaks, and we have no way of knowing whether her silence is instinct or numb indifference, nor do we. I don't know how much she knows about what's going on around her, but she definitely accepts all that life has to offer. Perhaps this kind of state similar to half-shock is the best for her, because instead of being powerless to fight against life, it is better to be more calm. But Barbara did not give up life completely. When Ricky said she was leaving home, she did not forget to ask her son to bring a raincoat.
In fact, both the Jenny family and the Ricky family are facing the same problem, but the specific manifestations are completely different. We can't say who condoned the deterioration of the situation, because no one wants to fall completely, they just want to find some curved ways to save themselves in the difficult predicament. As for those disputes and quarrels, in fact, many of them were not intentional, but were caused by a momentary impulse. Just like when Jenny said she wanted to find someone to kill her father, it can only be regarded as an extreme complaint, but ironically, this sentence was a prophecy, and it really became the final ending of Lester, and Jenny did it unintentionally. Back to the Inspirational Screenwriter.
Leicester may not have thought that he would end up like this, in fact, he did nothing wrong at all, but the fate of the gods joked with him too much. The blood that splashed on the wall was dazzlingly red, like the countless rose petals he had seen in his dreams. But maybe it's just Lester playing a big joke on us, that accidental death was just his fantasy, because he still rambles on after his death in the movie.
Life is a grand show, everyone will be tired sometimes, but the length of time everyone slack is different. In the face of a dilemma, whether it is good to work hard to get in shape, shoot to vent the pressure, or use a camera to spy on the surroundings, it is a powerless struggle, and the effect is temporary. Only when the heart is truly at peace will it be able to detach itself from all the clutter. Lester represents the deepest distress, Caroline contains the deepest helplessness, Jenny hides the deepest indifference, Angela has the deepest loneliness, Ricky shows the deepest madness, Frank endures the deepest pain, and Barbara felt the deepest numbness. Everyone is a weak person who has been transformed by the environment, but they are not willing to be captured, so they have to constantly deal with life and others.
God can never fulfill all our desires, just as he created the rose, but also created the thorns attached to its stem, and life is the thorny rose. In this rose blood case caused by misunderstanding and accident, it seems that everyone is an innocent victim, and everyone seems to be a murderer with a gun. .
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