(I think we were probably the last people on the planet to see this movie, thanks to Ballbuster video always having it rented out for the last 3 months.)
Anyway, the end section didn’t make much sense to me. In the movie Lester wants his daughter’s friend and then she wants him. They are making out, getting nekkid, and he suddenly stops when she says she’s actually a virgin.
For his character, who already had been having dreams about having her, it didn’t make sense to turn it off for him like a light switch. It isn’t like he had thoughts of his daughter, or ruining his marriage, so what did I miss? Was it just to make us like Lester better, that he wasn’t a bad person, so that the final scene is all that more tragic?
I think he realized that his self-indulgence had impact on the real world. Had she been a slut like she proclaimed, he’s just using her for sex, which would have been ok. However, in taking her virginity, he’d make an impact in her life forever, something that made him stand up and really evaluate what he was doing. I thought it was very well done.
Ah, this was such a great movie. They tell you at the beginning that he’s going to die and you have no idea who does it until you see it. So many people I know talk about The Sixth Sense’s ending, but this one is superior on so many levels.
MY take on the deal with Lester and Angela was pretty much the same as mentioned already. It was a big slap-in-the-face moment that snapped him out of his selfishness. I also think that it introduced a bit of irony that, had he not had his brains blown all over the nice white tile wall, he probably would have been a better husband and father for the whole ordeal. He grew up just in time to die.
I’m just glad that he grew up after Mena Suvari got naked. (Obviously, I’m still waiting for that slap-in-the-face.)
I think it’s because in his fantasies she is so hot for him- very seductive and sure of herself. When they get down to it, she is apprehensive and nervous. He realizes that she is not the seductress he had hoped for, but instead is a young woman that’s a virgin and deserves better then a man old enough to be her father being her first.
An interesting point about Lackluster video and American Beauty. The reason it’s always rented out and not one of their “Gaurenteed” releases, is BBV wanted more money from the company that made the film, more revenues per title. When the movie company refused BBV didn’t announce the release as widely, and in some markets kept the movie behind the counter so you had to ask for it by name to get it.
