Breaking down American Beauty

"Look closer" is the tagline of the movie American Beauty. This phrase fits the movie very well. When you look closer at each character in the film, you discover something they are hiding or another side of them. For example, when Angela is around others she acts like she is better than everyone because of her looks. She makes fun of others and bosses people around, even her own friend Jane. However, in the end we find out the reason she acts this way is because she is insecure. She feels the need to put others down to feel better about herself.

Ricky is another character who we find has a deeper side to him. Angela and Jane see him as a creep at first because of the way he acts, mainly saying strange things and videotaping Jane from a distance. But Jane sees something interesting in him when she says, "He's so confident." She eventually gets to know Ricky very well and they start dating. She discovers he is very emotional and has a very demanding military father. Jane is also drawn to Ricky because she is also seen as somewhat of an outcast.

By the end of the film we see a new side of all the main characters. The deconstruction of these ideologies is a major theme of the movie. Each character of has their own system of ideas that goes through a transformation when they learn something about theirselves by the end. What is the American Dream? This is what Lester and his family ask themselves. They have a nice house in a nice neighborhood and the parents have nice jobs; their lives are fairly normal. This is exactly the problem. Lester, Carolyn and Jane all feel like they are stuck in a normal, average life that isn't going anywhere, up or down. They all have different ways of coping. Lester starts working out to impress Angela, Carolyn has an affair, Jane has a relationship with Ricky. In the end they all realize that their life is fine the way it is. This is examplified by the plastic bag that Ricky videotaped. It is a simple object floating in the wind. It is a metaphor for the way the family lives material lives. But it is empty, and Ricky thinks this is beautiful. This suggests that their lives are beautiful without the material things in them. All they need is each other.