Page "American Beauty (film)" Paragraph 10
from
Wikipedia
Mendes called American Beauty a rites of passage film about imprisonment and escape from imprisonment.
The monotony of Lester's existence is established through his gray, nondescript workplace and characterless clothing.
He masturbates in the confines of his shower ; the shower stall evokes a jail cell and the shot is the first of many where Lester is confined behind bars or within frames, such as when he is reflected behind columns of numbers on a computer monitor, " confined nearly crossed out ".
His sexual reawakening through meeting Angela is the first of several turning points as he begins to " off the responsibilities of the comfortable life he has come to despise ".
After Lester shares a joint with Ricky, his spirit is released and he begins to rebel against Carolyn.
Changed by Ricky's " attractive, profound confidence ", Lester is convinced that Angela is attainable and sees that he must question his " banal, numbingly materialist suburban existence "; he takes a job at a fast-food outlet, which allows him to regress to a point when he could " see his whole life ahead of him ".
Page 1 of 1.
1.839 seconds.