Anu's Reviews > American Beauty

Full disclosure: I never had plans of reading this; I found this "book" in the library quite by accident, and thought "why the hell not?". I say "book" because it is not a book per se, but the filming script for the movie. A movie which I absolutely adored. I am, by nature, a rather cynical person, so satirical, dark humour appeals to me deeply.

The director of the movie, Sam Mendes called it a 'kaleidoscopic journey through the American suburbia'. I'm not American, and I don't know how the quintessential American suburbia functions. What I do know, is that the script, and by extension, the movie, depicts dysfunctionality in a realistic and rather efficient manner. Before Walter White, there was Lester Burnham, a regular Joe going through a mid-life crisis. He's as average as it gets, as referenced by his beige cubicle which acts as an allegory to his life. His wife resents him, and his daughter hates him. "We used to be happy" , he reminisces at one point, while looking at a photo of his family during happier days. His daughter, Jane is withdrawn, angsty, and insecure. Ashamed of her parents, especially her father. Carolyn, his wife, is ambitious, and somewhere down the line, let her ambition control other aspects of her life, turning into a bitter, self-loathing woman who constantly berates herself and slaps herself. There's the boy next door Ricky, who falls in love with Jane. Ricky lives with his controlling father and emotionally frail mother. Ricky, who sees beauty in everything, (view spoiler)[including the famous white plastic bag fluttering in the wind. (hide spoiler)]

I think in the end, that's what one gets from the movie; that there is beauty in everything. There is beauty in life, and in death.