American Beauty: The Ugliness of American Dream

American Beauty is directed by Sam Mendes, the director behind Skyfall, Road to Perdition, 1917, Revolutionary Road, and written by Alan Ball. The movie brought us to the lives of typical American people which we can see in our daily life. They are successful people, perfectionists, losers, popular, hopeless, and hypocrites.

That is American society.

Source: IMDb

But more than that, the movie is about finding the pursuit of happiness. I have watched this movie more than 5 times. Each time I had different thinking about American life. Each character in American Beauty is not living. They are hustling to survive.

A middle-aged man, who is underestimated by his wife and daughter and found no taste in life, suddenly changes himself and stands up to get his life back after he falls in love with a young girl who is the same age as his daughter. He does so many crazy things like exercising, smoking weed, quitting his job, and doesn’t care about what people think. More specially, he is finding his happiness again. But ironically, he lost himself on that path, and in the end, when he realizes what happiness actually is, it is too late. A middle-aged woman, who is obsessed with perfection, success, and reputation, falls into the trap of herself. She finds out that life is no longer about living true. It is about faking life. How does that happen? Simple, she cheats on her husband, she fires some guns to release stress, she ignores things around her, and she needs sex. She never tries anything of those for a while. Like her husband, she has found her own happiness in fake. A teenage girl, who is struggling in life and thinking she is not beautiful, finds love with a weird guy but he thinks she is the most beautiful girl ever. He teaches her how to live a happy life and wants her to go away with him to stay away from this desperate life. A man, who is a Marine vet, has to hide away his own identity and his personality to be admired by everyone for his dignity and his military career. When he finds out about his love, he is rejected. It is too late.

Adults in this movie have lost themselves on their way to finding the pursuit of happiness. And in the end, they paid for the consequences. But luckily, their consequences don’t affect the children because they have found what happiness means to them.

American Beauty has a scene where a trash bag is dancing with leaves. That scene is worth millions of dollars. A bag represents ourselves and leaves represent life. It means we are flowing with life. Where life goes, we have to go with it. Simple.

American Beauty has portrayed an ugly picture of American life which is still happening every day. We don’t live for ourselves. We live to please other people. We change not for ourselves. We change to upset, satisfy, or annoy people. Face it, it is the reality. This movie is a comedy but behind it, it is a tragedy that makes us laugh. Highly recommend!