American Beauty--Why pull back at the end? (Unboxed spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

American Beauty got great reviews when it came out; it did well at the box office, and for a while it was on everyone’s lips. The consensus was that it was a masterpiece.

But I read a review a while ago that expressed displeasure with it. I don’t remember what that particular critic’s reasons for saying that were, but it got me thinking. American Beauty impressed me at first, too; but the more I think about it the more I feel dissatisfied, as though there was a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

So I suddenly had an epiphany. The plot of the movie goes roughly like this: A guy becomes unhappy with his life; he tosses the whole thing out the window, does some selfish and irresponsible stuff we all wish we had the guts to do; he pursues the sexy cheerleader but when the chips are down backs away; he’s shot by the half-crazed repressed homosexual next door.

The problem, as I suddenly saw it, is that when the cheerleader is all ready to have sex with him, he suddenly gets an attack of responsibility and turns her down. It’s inconsistent with his character arc: He tosses everything away, he acts juvenile and irresponsible, he abrogates his adult responsibilities. Now he makes all that pointless: Oops, guess I’m responsible after all; just kidding! The plot takes a 180 degree turn. And then he gets shot.

What if he’d done the dirty deed with her? It would have been a better and more consistent movie.

He’s been transgressive all through the movie; if he committed the ultimate transgression, that would both be in character and justify his death at the end. The movie would flow better, and have a clear moral: Transgress too much, and society fights back.

Of course, no theatre is going to show a movie with sex with an underage girl in it. :rolleyes:

2

I have some thoughts, but it’s been a couple of years since I watched this. Gonna go watch it now before I reply. :slight_smile:

3

I disagree. I think that it is being confronted with his ultimate selfish goal that makes him realize that his life was not as bad as he had thought, and that acting on his selfish needs would ruin what he had left (especially his relationship with is daughter). The character learns his flaw, goes to reflect and then is killed before he can make amends with what he has done. Sounds like character development to me.

4

Remember, Lester didn’t pull away until the girl, who he presumed was sexually experienced, admitted that she was a virgin. That’s what casued Lester to realize what a skeeve he would be to go through with it. It was a moment of clarity that I thought was consistant with the character. Great movie - one of my favorites.

Pash

5

When Angela confesses that she’s a virgin, Lester realizes that his obsession has never been about her. His attraction to her was based on an elaborate fantasy about her as an archetype of raw sexual power.

At the threshold, he actually sees her. He sees what she really is – an uncertain little girl, and not the idealized erotic creature that lives in his head.

Angela is confused about why he’s pulling back, too. She says “I thought you thought I was beautiful.” Lester replies, “You are.”

This is Lester’s “polyethylene bag epiphany.” He sees the real, commonplace beauty in the world, and stops looking for his abstract ideal.

6

So, you want a self-justifying morality play? :rolleyes:

7

It is truly a testment to Conrad Hall’s wonderful cinematography, Thomas Newman’s terrific score, and a generally fine stable of actors (with the exception of the wasted Bening & Janney) that such a trite mess of a movie manages to impress so many people. Like shooting fish in a barrel, all the targets are so obvious (Families are dysfunctional! Americans are obsessed with guns!), the contrivances so ridiculous (joint-making mistaken for blow job), and the cliches so abundant (slut talker = secret virgin, voyeur dope-seller = Mr. Sensitive, military dad = Nazi-collecting closet case) that the craftsmanship manages to make up for a lot.

In 1999 alone (the year AB came out), Election provided a more scathing satire of suburban malaise, Three Kings more potent jabs at consumer culture, Fight Club more acidic views on corporate emptiness (plus a superior Blackmail-the-Boss scene), and Magnolia a rawer examination of the frailty of human connections. Heck, even Go had a more believable gay couple and The Limey did a better job of using the Who’s “The Seeker”.

But the Plastic Bag scene was good (it’s a shame Wes Bentley hasn’t done anything noteworthy since).

8

And what if the bullet had only grazed his head and he lived…that probably would’ve impressed the screening audiences.

From my perspective, in the final scenes, where Lester flashes back on the highlights & loves of his life, he’s focused on his wife…and Janie. The closing dialogue:

“There’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst…I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life…You have no idea what I’m talking about. But don’t worry…You will someday.”

Just wouldn’t have had the same meaning or powerful message. In fact, had Lester gone to bed with the beautiful object of his desires, audiences probably would have been rooting for Carolyn to shoot him 1st.

9

My take was that when Angela tells Lester she’s a virgin, she’s now more an a par with his own daughter and he views her through the eyes of a Dad, as opposed to those of a male who thinks she’s hot. That’s why, as attractive as he found her to be, he couldn’t dance the nasty with her.

10

I guess I’ve never seen the point of the movie as that complex (though that doesn’t mean it does not have significant meaning). I think that he realized what he was doing, and realized that his time in life for such selfishness and stupidity had passed. He basically came to, and realized that he had been so selfishly looking for something, while he was ignoring the beauty of what he had and what he was (or at least could be, without needing to regress as he had).

11

Here, here!!!

Someone has hit the nail on the head. So, I agree 100% with Archive Guy that it was not a masterpiece, but a testament to talent making something banal appear to be more important than it really was.

To answer the OP: It was the character’s epiphany when he saw the reality of the cheerleader and the depth of his selfishness that snapped him out of what you percieve as his character. It was merely his dementia, his temporary insanity that was driving him – at that moment he awoke and became himself again.

12

I think Larry about nailed it, except…

facade: An artificial or deceptive front

IMO, it’s that he’s managed to get past the facade that Angela presents, and to realize that what he desired (or thought he desired) was not real, but a facade. He had fooled himself into believing something that wasn’t based in fact, in reality, and had almost acted based upon that. He was happy because he was able to stop himself, to live in reality. Remember, the movie is mostly about Lester, and his point of view, and his attempts to reconfigure his life so that he could be happy. The things that were always preventing his happiness were the facades in life: his employer’s facade (represented by Brad, his manager), his wife’s facade (perfect successful real estate momwife), his daughter’s facade (misunderstood/lonely teenager), his neighbor’s facade (macho military man), and his own facade, which he was trying desperately to discard for the last year of his life.

Remember the scene where he and his wife are about to make love in the living room, and she stops him so they dont mess up the Name Brand Expensive Sofa? And he yells at her that it’s not important, it’s a fucking couch? The facade got in the way of what really mattered: two people showing their love for each other. This is what the whole movie is about: the facades in our lives.

Angela’s confession that she is a virgin stripped away a facade that she had constructed publicly, and that he had constructed in his own head. He realizes that this is a beautiful girl, but not the same image of sexuality that he had believed/hoped/convinced himself. He sees, yes, that there is beauty in the world, and sometimes it’s just that and nothing more: beauty. He sees that beauty is not a thing to be possessed, it’s something to be appreciated.

That’s why he dies with a smile on his face: that whole last scene (and the end soliloquy) Lester is standing there thinking “hey! I get it now!”

13

Gosh, I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thought the movie was badly overrated. I was beginning to feel I was alone in the universe.

14

Snoboarder Bo, I see the movie a tiny bit differently – not so much about what people present as what they idealize – and it’s not about Lester’s happiness so much as happiness in general.

A subtle, (and maybe trivial) difference, but I think the theme is more about how individuals’ abstractions about what they need to be happy gets in the way of their happiness.

They are all shown up as miserable because they put too much stock in their abstractions and miss what’s right in front of them.

For Caroline, it’s financial success.

For Ricky’s dad, it’s “manliness.”

For Lester, it’s youthful freedom and self-determination.

For Angela, it’s popularity.

For Jane, it’s “normality.”

They’re all terribly anxious about having these fetishes slip away from them. They’re all certain that they know that they have the key, their insecurities all come from the doubt that they can attain it, and their friction with the other characters comes from their perception that they don’t value their chosen ideal with the same single-mindedness that they do.

To some degree, they’re all miserable because they have preconceptions about what is required to be happy.

Of course, their are plenty of false faces, but I think they are symptomatic of this, rather than the main point. The most explicit mention of facade is in Caroline’s adopting of her real-estate idol’s maxim: “In order to be successful, you must present an appearance of success at all times.” For her, the facade isn’t the thing itself – it’s just a means to obtain her tantalizing “obscure object of desire.”

15

Larry, I think we’re in basic agreement about the theme, even if our semantics differ. I just watched it again, tho, and the “facade” theme kept coming up.

Brad is the artificial face of the business, that Lester can’t get past. The camera is the artificial face of Ricky. Financial success is the artificial face that Carolyn wears (that Lester can’t get past). Macho man is the artificial face that Col. Fitts presents to the world. Etc., etc.

Also, look at how many shots in the film are seen thru a window, a glass facade.

At the end of the film, Carolyn sits in her car, steeling herself to walk in and shoot Lester, and she looks pointedly at the door to their house, another facade, and one which she is trying to compell herself to go thru.

The Colonel, after shooting Lester, is seen in his house, closing the door behind him as he begins to clean the blood off himself.

There’s more, but you see where I’m coming from I hope.

Like I said, I think we’re in basic agreement about the theme(s), even if our semantics differ slightly.

It is Lester’s story tho. Yes, the theme(s) are somewhat representational, as indicated by the title, but the story is about Lester. He narrates it, and the story is entirely framed by the last year of his life. …and as I re-read your comments on preview, I find that it wasn’t you who thought otherwise. LOL ah well

16

(slight hijack)
I was always a little confused by the ending; Not about why Lester didn’t fulfill his fantasy about Angela, but why he dies. The filmmakers spend most of the final act setting up Carolyn’s anger and intent for revenge against Lester, yet the fulfillment is taken away from her when Col. Fitts gets to him first.

I gathered that Fitts was ashamed of himself and the “failure” of his manliness, but it doesn’t adequately explain why he’d take it out by killing Lester, as opposed to himself. That would have made more sense to me, but it wouldn’t have established the “twist” ending.

17

I’m not surprised that Fitts would want to kill Lester instead of himself. If he killed Lester, then no one would ever know about Fitts coming on to him, because Fitts surely wouldn’t want to tell anyone. If he killed himself, people might find out his secret.

18

I always thought that Carolyn had her own “Lester-like” breakdown, where she realized what she had become. I do not think she would have killed him; in fact, I think that had the movie “gone on” without Lester dying, she also would have been substantially changed.

19

All the baby-boober malaise in AB kinda reminded me of scenes in the first two Austin Powers flicks where he gets all misty-eyed about his dead friends and lost mojo.

I wasn’t particularly impressed by Fight Club, either. Seeing men kvetch about how their lives turned out just doesn’t appeal to me.

20

Three Kings more potent jabs at consumer culture
[/QUOTE]

I don’t want to hijack this thread, but can someone explain this?

I love Three Kings, but it just seemed like a war movie to me.

Was it because of the scenes with Marky Mark, the CDs and the oil?