Freedoms of American Beauty

American Beauty is such an excellent title for such a great movie. The title is so effective because of the movie being such a beauty in itself as a work of art. Many characters and points within the movie appear to display something other than what they really are on the inside, much like the title American Beauty, which is quite deceiving. As the movie progresses, I feel that Lester, whom is the main character of the movie, goes through the movie as a suppressed person, emotionally and decisively, to one who expresses his natural freedom to its limits. With his newfound freedom put in action I feel that Lester loses sight of his moral freedom and allows his natural freedom to fully control. I believe this is due to the amount of stress, tension and events occurring through this mid-life crisis that he is experiencing which finally build up to create his turning point.

Right at the beginning of the movie, there are certain scenes which relate and lead to the main characters road to rebellion from his normal everyday life. One such scene is in the opening where he stands in the shower, masturbating, which is revealed as, “the high point of his day”. This shows his sexual

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” This comes from the movie Fight Club. And finally, he is days away from losing his job of 14 years. During his short span of expressiveness and free actions Lester seemed to slightly lose his grip of reality as well as responsibility, a struggle that each and every individual deals with from time to time in their lives. And with a little motivational push from Ricky, Lester begins to actually live his life, speak his mind and do as he pleases. One other impacting factor is displayed in a scene later on that same day at work. He has no relationship with his daughter, they have grown distant and more often are in conflict than in pleasant situations.

Now once Lester has found this new guiding light in his life, he slowly begins to think and act differently. Lester simply realizes his position right now in his life, and decides to take his natural freedom to its limits. ”

I feel that the turning point for Lester was when he meets Ricky at a dinner conference of his wife’s. He makes no attempt to hide the fact that he is smoking and then sends her on her way after calling her a “bloodless, money-grubbing freak”. Finally, tied in with his pent up sexual tension, in comes a friend of his daughters in whom he begins to obsess about and many times, fantasize about. That next day he continues his assault on Carolyn as she confronts him as he works out in the garage while smoking a joint. Now instead of Lester taking the expectable route and turning in a report that actually does highlight his contributions to the company, he pulls a complete 180 and simply writes about his hatred for the company and his daily masturbation in the men’s room.

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Approximate Word count = 1353
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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