In the film American Beauty, the characters go through changes, which help some of them find their inner peace. They learn to find what makes them happy in life and what makes them grateful. As each character goes through changes, some of them find a place of happiness while the others sink in misery because they have lost themselves and what they used to live for. Analyzing and grasping for happiness, Lester finds his internal peace and becomes a better person who asserts himself as well as finds himself in the position to help others look at their own personal issues.
             The Burnham family is not very functional when we find them in the start of the film. They seem to all come very close to hating each other and only tolerate each other because they have to. They are the trophy family. The mother despises her husband, even considers him a loser. The father despises the mother for being so controlling, shallow, and untruthful with herself and others. Their daughter, whose emotions bubble quietly and sear viciously; is an adolescent struggling between wanting to love her parents and seeing their blemishes in stark relief, as only an offspring can. "I need a father who's a role model," says Jane, "not some horny geek boy who's gonna spray his shorts whenever I bring a girlfriend home from school. What a lame-o."
             The daughter is disappointed in the dad because he lost his fire for life and himself in the process of pleasing his wife's needs and trying to be the man of the house, which he no longer is at the start of the movie. Lester knows that he has lost some part of himself and points this out in the movie, ``I know I've lost something,'' he says, ``but I don't know what it is.''
             The mother has gotten what she has been seeking her entire life which is success. She has achieved success all by herself which is one of her life goals: her rose garden, money and motivational tapes, and the image of su...