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American Beauty Paper

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Submitted By finn1201
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American Beauty
BSHS/342
March 10, 2012

American Beauty
American Beauty is a movie that captures one man’s thoughts as he enters middle age. The main character is Lester Burnham; he is an average man who holds a decent paying job as a magazine executive. The movie starts off introducing Lester’s life in short, he is in a loveless relationship to his wife Carolyn and his daughter Jane has self-esteem issues. As Lester soon discovers his job is in jeopardy, after working for the same company for the extent of 14 years he may soon be let go. This news drives him to re-think his life and evaluate his past and present. His life changes when Jane brings home a new friend. Angela is a young attractive female who catches the eye of Jane’s father, this gives him new inspiration. Each character in the movie has a direction or path that they think will lead to happiness; it is a matter of what path they choose. The choices that Lester makes in this movie lead him down a path of destruction. He soon finds out that his daughters friend Angela has a crush on him, but this is only discovered after he is almost caught eavesdropping. The newly discovered information leads to a series of haphazard events. As Lester becomes engulfed in the moment he quits his job. This news puts a huge strain on Carolyn, she is so career-oriented that she loses her will for happiness. During the time Carolyn is working Les finds a job as a fast food worker, basically his actions are reverting back to those of a teen. He starts smoking marijuana, working out, and even buys a red Pontiac Trans Am. Society would refer to this circumstance as a mid-life crisis. This term “connotes personal turmoil and sudden changes in personal goals and lifestyle, brought about by the realization of aging, physical decline, or entrapment in unwelcome, restrictive roles” (Wethington, 2000 pg.86).

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