One of the most interesting films of the past 20 years is American Beauty. The story revolves around the life of Lester Burnham, a public relations tired of his life and his work. This seemingly harmless situation is turning into a tragedy when Lester falls in love with Angela, his daughter’s friend and twenty years his junior. From that tiny thrill and forbidden, Lester begins to confront his own current situation, becoming, for the first time in years, the owner of his own destiny. Quit your job, try to win back his wife, looking for friends with his daughter, began an exercise regimen and begins to consume recreational drugs.
But the film takes poetic piping due to past shows Lester in love with his wife. This is a picture in which Lester, his wife Carolyn and his daughter Jane, enjoy each other’s arms one night in the rides. The weather has turned Carolyn on an ambitious real estate broker, obsessed with self-help courses and find the rose perfect. The metaphors are repeated: when dreams of Angela Lester, the seen surrounded by rose petals perfect. Is it an attempt to recover Angela’s wife Carolyn was? Using the metaphor of the rose, suggesting that it is. Meanwhile, Carolyn has an affair with Buddy Kane, a real estate broker egocentric.
Lester When he learns of the infidelity of his wife, does not bother or depresses: rejoice. When released into Carolyn Lester, his obsession with Angela disappears and instead the girl, played by an impressive Mena Suvari, Lester decides to conquer. By the time Lester achieves its goal with Angela, has lost interest in it. He has lost his wife to the then and now. The making of American Beauty plot level is comparable to a Baroque cathedral, in which the symbols are repeated and contrasted each other. The humor that runs through the work, allows us to appreciate the symbolism in the eye, as friends we have known for some time. Thus, the work that gets a Macdonalds Lester is contrasts with the ambitious real estate agents. The gay couple whose neighbors turn out to be healthier than the classical family who moves to the block. The escapades of Lester and Ricky (the son of his neighbor) remind us that even at 40 or 50 years, we remain the same, with the same capacity for fun and romance. When Lester is identified with Ricky, the latter ends up insulting Angela, seeing in her ugliness Lester, with more experience, is unable to see. Lester is more mature and wise observer and yet Ricky Ricky is able to see beauty that are not of this world, but living in it. Filled symbols, humor and tragedy, American Beauty is a film for the story, which manages to show the magic of life that sometimes seems to fade with time.