external portrayal of successfulness, one need not look further than within the walls of the Byrnham household. Carolyn is the best example of peripheral fakeness; she is the worst offender of this superficial nature. Her real estate job is more important then her family, her marriage, and even her life, because her business is her life. She takes on the identity of the houses that she tries to sell. In the movie, the one house that the audience sees is nice on the outside but very ugly on the inside. When people come to look at the house, they see the ugliness on the inside and are turned away from Carolyn and from buying the house. The irony is that the house needs the most work on the inside much like Carolyn. Perhaps it is the Sam Mendes's (the director's) way of metaphorically portraying the fact that Carolyn needs to work on her internal rather than the external. In the advertisement for the house, Carolyn lies about the pool out back saying it is lagoon- like. She can lie about the external part of the house, but it is the internal that people truly find ugly about both Carolyn and her real estate. When people turn down her real estate, she takes it to heart because her job is who she is. If someone does not like her product, then they do not like Carolyn.
             People do not like Carolyn because she is nothing more than a facade. There is nothing behind a facade. It is something that tricks people into believing that the beauty on the outside is equal to the beauty on the inside. Ricky Fitts, the Byrnhams&apos
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