Produced by : Bruce Cohen & Dan Jinks
Written by : Alan Ball
Genre: Drama

Studio: DreamWorks

Release Date: 4 February 2000 (UK)

Domestic Gross: $130,096,601

Budget: $15 million

Mktng. Budget: $30 million

Running Time: 122 mins.
Music by Thomas Newman

Cinematography by Conrad L. Hall
Editing by Tarig Anwar & Christopher Greenbury

Distributed by Dream Works

Starring :

Kevin Spacey as Lester Burnham
Annette Bening as Carolyn Burnham
Thora Birch as Jane Burnham
Wes Bently as Ricky Fitts
Mena Suvari as Angela Hayes
Chris Cooper as Col. Frank Fitts
Peter Gallagher as Buddy Kane
Allison Janney as Barbara Fitts
Scott Bakula as Jim Olmeyer
Sam Robards as Jim Berkley

Lester Burnham

Kevin spaceys performance in the film shows us that lester has no motivation in his life what so ever by the way he undertakes his day to day lifestyle. We get the feeling that he is frustrated and unhappy with his life at the start of the film when he is masturbating in the shower, over the top of this scene he is narrating about how this is the highlight of his day and everything goes down hill after that. Another good example of him showing the audience that he is fed up with his way of life and wants a drastic change is the scene where he quits his job. This changes the way we view Lester because at the start then he hands in a bit of paper explaining “what his job consists of” and it gets read out it makes us think he is very foolish because of the language he used and the things he mentions like referring to his bosses as “arse holes” and how he admits to going to the bathroom once a day to “jerk off”. We think this is a foolish thing to do because the advertising company that he works for would never hand him a reference so this would affect his ability to get another job. When his statement is being read out he has a very smug and cocky look across his face because he knows what ever he put on that bit of paper he had a plan to get him out of working with one years fully paid salary and benefits. He manages to do this by letting his boss know that he knows about their editorial director who has been spending the company’s money to buy prostitutes and Lester threatens to tell the IRS, their rival company’s and Creg’s wife about it. His boss doesn’t buy it and refuses to give him what he wants but then Lester mentions about accusing him of sexual assault. The boss cant believe that Lester had thought this deeply into it to get his own way and calls him “twisted” then Lesters response is “no.., im just an ordinary guy with nothing to loose”, I like this quote because its showing us that he has no care in the world for his job/future carrier by gambling it all away and trying his chances.
We get to understand that Lester is considered at the bottom of his family’s hierarchy at the start of the film where we see his wife driving and his daughter sitting in the front seat and him what looks to be cramped in the back seat. This shows us that the authority comes strictly from his wife and that he tends not to have any power or say in how things are dun. We see a child like resemblance when he is sitting in the back seat on his way to work asleep on his hands, his body language and posture are also very similar to a child’s.

The character of Lester seems to develops into creep through out the film mainly for the fact that he develops a crush on his daughters best friend. The way he acts when she is around is like his personality has changed to a teenage boys who is very shy and finds it hard to make convocation with a girl. When the scene of him and his wife watching his daughter cheerlead, the camera zooms in slowly into his face whilst flicking back and forth of Angela dancing, this slow zoom makes us understand that Lester is mesmerised and sucked into her body movements. The way his mouth has dropped open shows us he is very interested and wants her to himself. I like the way the cheerleading girls are in the dark and Angela is in a spotlight, this makes me feel like I am Lester and looking through his eyes, excluding the other dancers from the image he is seeing and just focusing 100% of his attention on to her.


The Opening

American beauty starts off with a crane shot that slowly zooms into his street, it looks like a very sunny pleasant place to be living. It kind of gives off the feel of being successful and wealthy. He mentions being “dead already” this indicates to us that he is fed up of his day to day life routine. When we see his wife pruning the roses we get a feel that she likes to keep everything as perfect as possible, the fact her gardening sheers match her shoes proves the point that she is completely cautious of the image she is living. During Lesters narrating he mentions “she used to be happy, we used to be happy”
Tells us that she used to be happy before getting obsessed with material possessions that has led to ruing her marriage and taking away her true personality and replacing it with one that is false. We get introduced to his daughter “Jane” by seeing her looking up breast enlargement programs, this shows us that she is a ordinary typical teenager that is unhappy with her appearance and life. When Lester describes himself as being “sedated” we understand that he