Analyse af filmen 'American Beauty'

”American Beauty” is an American Drama film written by Allan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes in 1999. The film is basically about Lester Burnham, who wants to start his life over again. Carolyn is Lester’s materialistic wife, who wishes that everything in her life is perfect. In Lester’s world, she is the biggest remaining prevention in the family. Lester meets a drug dealer who changes his lifestyle by smoking joints with him. It is a sweet film surrounded by drama in a small citizen residential neighborhood in an American suburb, which includes many conflicts and comedy based on jealousy, hate, sexuality and beauty.

In this dramatic film, we are introduced to the narrator by himself, “My name is Lester Burnham. This is my neighborhood. This is my road. This is my life. I am forty-two years old. In less than a year will I be dead”. It was in that way the main narrator in American Beauty did introduce himself over the radio in the start of the film. The film starts home at the family Burnham, in a beautiful and quiet residential neighborhood, where Lester lives together with his wife Carolyn and their daughter Jane.

Lester works as a writer in an advertising industry in the city, which are a few minutes far away from his home. Everything in his life goes on repeat, every single day. - The transport to and from the work. He does always drive in the same car, where the radio plays the same, and also on the streets where the people are making the same movements at the same time all days of the week. When he suddenly comes home from a structured day, he comes home to his wife Carolyn, who works as a realtor in the area. Carolyn wants everything to be perfect, even do that she is the biggest presentation for Lester. The most important thing for her is what other people’s opinions about her and her family’s life. The daughter Jane sees her father Lester, as an old idiot who is horny all the time, and already in the start of the film, in the first scene, she says to Ricky in a video-recorder, that she wished that her dad was dead!