American Beauty Unveiled: Exploring Family, Sex, and Materialism in a Cinematic Masterpiece

The film American Beauty is a masterpiece Oscar award-winning movie that was first released in 1999 (Mendes, 1999). It was written by Alan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes (Mendes, 1999). The movie rotates about the life of Lester Burnham, a middle-aged man, and his family to explore the themes of sex, career success, and materialism. Lester, a middle-aged man in his 40S, has been caged in a loveless marriage for over 20 years, although he attempts to seek satisfaction from his environment after getting fed up with all-too-average life (Mendes, 1999). The elements lead to the fallout of his family as well as his death (Mendes, 1999). His emerging poor decisions and habits catch up with him, later only for him to realize the meaning he had lost in his life and the love and value he had for his family at the verge of his life. Lester's wife, Carolyn, is similarly focused on finding relinquishment through career mobility and material gain, while her husband quit his job and did not seek material gain (Mendes, 1999). However, their desires meet in their urge to find sex outside marriage. After pursuing sex, career mobility, and material gain, the Burnhams end up wasting their life, ruining their family, which they later realize was the most valuable aspect of their life.

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In all the things we do, it is our ultimate goal to realize meaning and happiness. However, they are not what we necessarily find, even the smallest piece of it. This could not be far from the truth in the gripping film. Lester is at a point in his life where he feels imprisoned in himself. He feels insignificant both to his wife Carolyn and daughter Jane (Mendes, 1999). Lester encounters Jane's friend, Angela Hayes, and becomes obsessed with her. His lust for Angela rejuvenates him to feel young once again, yet the change is just a part of a problematic and decadent lifestyle, as shown by other film characters. He purchases a sports car, quits his office job, and engages in everything his heart has ever wanted to do (Mendes, 1999). His wife, Carolyn, becomes so focused on achieving her career mobility that and loses taste in her marriage. It is evident to Lester that she is not the girl he married. Carolyn seeks a husband who is full of life and success, and unfortunately, Lester's realization occurred at entirely the wrong time (Mendes, 1999). She falls in love with Buddy, a fellow real estate agent she believes is more accomplished and worth her affection than Lester. Carolyn feels that if she affiliates with Buddy, his success will reflect on her (Mendes, 1999). However, she finally awakens that the affair lacks the emotional connection that she seeks, making her spiral uncontrollably.

The film also indicates many empty materialistic promises. The Burnhams live the American Dream; a good suburb house, good jobs, children, two cars, and good jobs (Mendes, 1999). Carolyn is too attached to her possessions, especially her home items, which is evident when her husband tries to make love to her in her living room as she is more worried about the beer spilling on her Italian coach (Mendes, 1999). Caroline also fights her daughter and yells at her for being ungrateful for her life, more so the home they have and the life they have given her. Accumulation of Material is what she considers happiness, and she does not understand that it is a close and personal level relationship with her daughter and an intimate affair with her husband that matters the most (Mendes, 1999). In the same materialistic obsessive nature and status that makes Carolyn and Lester neglect Jane. They believe that getting her material things would make her feel loved and well-nurtured. Besides, the material obsession breaks up the family after Lester starts squandering money without consulting his wife as he buys his dream sports car, which frustrates her. Carolyn's material obsession makes Lester start eyeing Angela, her daughter's friend (Mendes, 1999). Moreover, with the apparent uncontrollable differences in materialistic interests between the couple, Carolyn ends up cheating on Lester with Buddy. However, when Lester finds out about their affair, it all falls apart for her. The impact is so harsh on Carolyn since not only her affair had ended, but her business partner, which was the most crucial aspect of her life at the given point (Mendes, 1999). With fury, she loads up her gun, ready to kill him, but when she hears the gunshot and realizes that he is dead, she awakens to the fact that she loved him so much, as shown by her melting into his closet while crying uncontrollably.

The film is uniquely comfortable with sex and sexuality. It handles nudity, extramarital sex, and even masturbation with a masterful blend of deft irony and sensuality. Concurrently, it shows a stunning variety of challenging sexual relationships. Lester's newly established freedom is purely symbolized through his decision to masturbate on his marital bed, next to his wife, instead of his regular place; the shower where his excretions are washed away (Mendes, 1999). Carolyn engages in a torrid affair with Buddy Kane, although participants appear to be highly aroused by his status than anything else. She moves out of her wedlock out of her changed her husband's frustration, and unfortunately, she seems to be more satisfied with her newborn pleasure (Mendes, 1999). Angela deceits about awful sexual practices to make her peers believe that she is more sophisticated than she actually is. Jane also exposes her nudity through her bedroom window to her newly found boyfriend, Ricky, to show her trust in him and his father nearly catches them. Sex is among the ways the characters' multiple dysfunctions are expressed; hence, size is hardly just sex. (Mendes, 1999) When Ricky's father, Colonel Fitts, sees his son and Lester together in Lester's house and tells him that they have a sexual encounter, the truth's perversion represents the Colonel's suspicion and the urge for total control (Mendes, 1999). On the other hand, when Lester abstains from engaging in sex with Angela, he is aware that having freedom does not balance being irresponsible. The self-rediscovery gets him to realize the great value his family has to him (Mendes, 1999). However, the reawakening happens too late as he never gets a chance to put his family together since Colonel Fitts shoots him dead (Mendes, 1999). Today, the implicit meaning that Sam Mendes brought up is that sex serves as a unique indication of individuality and freedom and is hence a perfect reflection to view the progression of each character.

American Beauty is a consummate film that uses the themes mentioned above across the story cohesively to deliver a deep understanding of their meaning and uses them to lead to Lester and his family's downfall and the mental switch that Lester had before his downfall. The entire sequence makes all other films look bad. It combines impeccable acting with a balanced, taut script whose murky satire appreciates scenes of biting humor and real sincerity. Lester gets fixated on Angela for the renewal of his sexual psychic; his wife Carolyn flings with Buddy, the real estate professional (Mendes, 1999). Their daughter, Jane, falls in what could be real love with her new abused neighbor who sees the world using a digital camera (Mendes, 1999). Mendes uses a perceptive of visual intelligence to make the film formally interesting to watch, and how the framing is incorporated into the plot brings out a more metaphoric spice. Spacey is certainly to be acclaimed, although the whole film presents complex and memorable characters. In various methods, the film makes the themes of sex, money, and materialism stand out to the mainstream audience, including the pedophilic adults, and the materialistic living disingenuousness. The film is so powerful, but both it and the characters manage to draw significant criticism and compassion. It is a seal of good acting that the characters navigate shell-like, shallow lives while portraying very true longing and pain sensations. Lester longs for his family that he had neglected to seek freedom; when Fitts shoots him, he has a fade-out flashback of the valuable and memorable instances and people in his life. His family is one thing he realizes that he truly values.

American Beauty was a great success, making Mendes the 72nd winner at the Academy Awards, taking up seven cumulative nominations, and racking up the Oscars for American Beauty Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Actor for Lester (IMDb, 2000). The film led Mendes to join the other several directors to win the Best Director Award for their first film. Since its debut, the film has swum through a current of breathtaking rave reviews and essays, despite having been launched at the Toronto film festival, a widely unusual place to launch a contender of eminent awards, and when major studio productions dominated the field (IMDb, 2000). Its success set a novel pathway for prestige films of autumn with great ambitions.

The film American Beauty focuses on American families' realism that continually struggles to find accomplishment in searching for an attainable dream. The tendency is as depicted all across the film; commitment to a career, being materialistic, and no play that people lose themselves and their families. Despite achieving the American dream, the Burnhams display the need to evade the desired pressure to find relinquishment in their lives. If it were not for the dramatic change of lifestyle and Lester's death, it would have been impossible for the family to reflect on their lives and make the best choices to find fulfillment within themselves and their family. Lester's journey to seek freedom while neglecting his family ends with his death, while Carolyn's journey to seek career success and find a man full of life while neglecting her family ends with her losing her affair, business partnership, and even her husband. Therefore, Sam Mendes delivers a crucial point to the audience, the consequences of accomplishing the American dream by portraying all the family's misfortunes for prioritizing personal relinquishment either through career, sex, and materialism. Throughout an individual's lifetime, one should find the beauty and joy in the world by seeking the right priorities, not lose the meaning of life, the value of a family, and most of all, waste themselves.

References

Mendes, S. (Director). (1999). American Beauty. [Film]. Universal Pictures. https://123moviesfree.net/movie/american-beauty-5109/watching.html

IMDb. (2000). Academy Awards, USA 2000. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169547/awards