The film American Beauty is extremely real it goes deep into the life of a family that looks as ordinary as the family on the Cosby show, but the reality will disturb you. I really enjoy this movie because it does not fit into any specific movie genre like a mobster or scary movie would. It is in a category of its own.
This film is about a high-class white family that has some very disturbing issues. The entire film has voice over done by the father. He is the narrator so most of the movie is from is point of view. He begins by stating that the saying “today is the first day of the rest of your life is only true of everyday except the day that you die.” This statement basically gets the audience prepared for something bad, also known as foreshadowing. The parents in this movie are strange the father is going through a midlife crisis that involves quitting his 14 year old job and blackmailing his boss for a years salary. He is also infatuated with his teenage daughters girlfriend Angela. Angela is in his dreams and when she comes over to the house to stay the night he is in complete aw over her. It’s pathetic. Angela on the other hand finds this to be sweet. She plays right along with him by flirting and say sexual remarks, until it goes too far.
The mother in this movie is so into her job that it is sick. She is a real estate agent who cares more about selling a house than her family. She has an episode in a house that she tried to sell and did not succeed in doing so. She was so mad at herself that she began to cry and then repeatedly slapped herself across the face telling herself to stop crying. Later in the film she finds some therapy in cheating on her husband with the man that she finds to be as committed in his work as a real estate as she is.
The daughter in the movie is the sanest person. She hates her parents for some very obvious reasons and Angela for wanting to have sex with her dad. She falls in love with her neighbor who initially gave her the creeps and who everyone at school calls “mental boy.” The mental boy is not mental at all though he is just a kid who sells a large amount of dope. He is good at it too and one of his clients ends up being his girlfriend’s dad. Mental boys father is the one who is extremely mental. He is military oriented and makes it a point to let his son know that gay men are the lowest people on the earth. He hates them but is one of them. He misconstrues several situations into believing that his son and girlfriends dad are an item.
Overall this movie is completely spontaneous from scene to scene. It ends up so strange that even I did not expect what happened.