American Beauty DVD box set: lost beauty

American Beauty DVD box set is about a man who fears growing older, losing the hope of true love and not being respected by those who know him best. If you never experience those feelings, take out a classified ad. People want to take lessons from you.

The film starts off strongly, revealing Kevin Spacey in the shower masturbating, explaining that this is the high point of his day. The film immediately puts a finger on his sexual frustration. Married and a father, the character has not had sex in some time with his wife (Annette Bening), who is more obsessed with decorating her house. Under the appearance of marital happiness lies a more serious problem. This frustration pushes the character to fantasize about his daughter’s classmate, which will trigger him to begin working out to become sexier and seduce her. The young girl incarnates this American beauty symbolized by fresh rose petals (in Spacey’s fantasies) contrasted with the planted rosebushes in his wife’s garden whose rigid beauty testifies to an absence of sexual desire for his wife. American Beauty denounces this America that, under a guise of Puritanism, commits the irreproachable, like family fathers chasing after young girls. Sexual frustration touches several other characters. Annette Bening will go find satisfaction elsewhere, while his neighbor’s homophobia seems to be a result of frustration tied to a puritanical education where these tendencies are not accepted.

American Beauty is not about a Lolita relationship, anyway. It's about yearning after youth, respect, and power and, of course, beauty. The moment a man stops dreaming is the moment he petrifies inside and starts writing snarly letters disapproving of paragraphs like the one above. Lester's thoughts about Angela are impure, but not perverted; he wants to do what men are programmed to do, with the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.