RojoAn American Beauty
An American Beauty
In Act III, Frank becomes worried with his son’s friendship with Lester, who he thinks is gay. After going through Ricky’s films, Frank finds a tape with Lester naked working out. What happened was Ricky was filming Jane, and noticed Lester in the garage looking at his naked silhouette. Ricky films this and his father is now certain that his son is gay. Meanwhile, Lester finds out about Carolyn’s affair. Lester is not bothered by the affair, because she’s happy. This makes Carolyn even more upset, then her lover leaves her. This sends her into a mantra about not being a victim. When Ricky comes home he find Frank waiting for him in the dark, then Frank accuses Ricky of being gay. Ricky first denies it, and then realizing his chance to escape his father’s prison he doesn't tell the truth. This hits his father’s worst fears, so he tells Ricky to leave. Ricky goes to Jane’s room and asks her to leave for New York City with him. Angela protests to them leaving. Ricky shoots her down calling her ugly and normal; Angela’s number one fear. Angela storms out, leaving Ricky and Jane to themselves.
Meanwhile, Lester finds an emotionally broken Frank standing out in the rain-soaking wet. Lester attempts to comfort him, and Frank kisses him on the lips. Lester tells him that he has the wrong idea. Feeling a deep shame, Frank disappears into the rain. Next Lester walks back into the house to find Angela crying on the stairs. A smooth confident Lester seduces Angela onto the ground. While under dressing her, Angela mentions to Lester how she’s a virgin. Lester realizes what was beautiful about her, and changes from a lover into a father figure. They bond for the first time, over their concern for Jane. Angela tells Lester that Jane is in love and asks how he feels. For the first time he realizes, to his own surprise, that he feels great. Angela goes to the bathroom, and Lester pulls up a picture of his family. The camera pans left and a gun is pulled to the back of Lester’s head.
In his final narration, Lester looks back on the major events of his life, intertwined with images of everyone's reactions to the sound of the gunshot, including one of a bloody and shaken Frank with a gun missing from his collection. Despite his death, Lester, from his vantage point as narrator, is content "I guess I could be really pissed off about what happened to me...but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst...and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain. And I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday."
Throughout the film there are major themes that continuously come out. The themes carry the message about what is the American beauty. Each character interacts with the themes differently, some grow above the negative themes, and others do not grow at all. The themes during the film are emptiness of materialism, denial and repression, loneliness versus feeling connection, and the search for beauty. All of the main characters deal with one or more of theses central themes.
The emptiness of materialism is the most easily seen in the Burnham’s house. On the outside the family seem to have the American dream. They have a high-quality house, both adults have bread-winning jobs, they have two cars, and a child.
This is part 1 of a two part series.
