Movie Analysis (Movie Review Sample)

Name Course Tutor Date “The American Beauty” Introduction Few films attain the high degree of excellence that American Charm, a breathtaking tragedy released in 1990, did. In terms of both substance and delivery to the viewer, the film is a real work of art (Pomerance 56). It stands out as an informative and timely drama about American society that never stops attempting to keep the audience enthralled with a variety of well-placed comedy. Every scene is filled with metaphor components that not only display wonderful creative and aesthetic attractiveness, but also serve as a metaphor for life and also generate a state of mind and emotion for the film's style (Pomerance 78). This essay focuses on the disjunction between its protagonists' search for emancipation and the revelations that only a handful of the characters make. Sam Mendes' film American Beauty is set in rural America in a regular community and depicts the everyday lives of the central protagonist, Lester Burnham, who is seeking the standard 'American Dream.' He appears to be well-off, with a spacious home, a loving wife and children, and even a white picket fence. All is not as it seems, since appearances may be misleading; if we just "look closer," we can see that he realizes that both his better half, Carolyn, and his adolescent child, Jane, believe he is "this big loser," and they are correct. Lester is introduced as a dejected, melancholy, and lonely forty-year-old man who has been robbed of his liberty and has struggled to find anything worthwhile to live for. Lester's personality as a character is radically enhanced as the film progresses, however, Angela Hayes, an equally interesting character, is introduced in this episode (Goudreau 30). Lester's life is turned upside down when his better half drags him to his daughter's school to watch her perform as a cheerleader. He finds his 'angel,' Angela, his child's high-school classmate, on the floor, parading and dancing about the court, absorbed in a pompon routine. Angela embodies the standard definition of physical beauty. Angela is not Lester's route to pleasure, but she is at least a catalyst for his release. She is slim, blonde, and huge blue-eyed, and she quickly draws Lester's attention (Goudreau 25). His ideas, as well as the unhappiness they elicit, set him free from years of mental torment and transport him back to his childhood. From this point on, Lester morphs into a hormone-fueled adolescent who smokes marijuana, works out, and performs his job all in the hopes of impressing his Angel-a. Angela is used in American Beauty to represent Lester's greater longing, which is his underlying desire for freedom and, obviously, beauty. She does, however, represent the underlying superficiality of physical beauty that is gradually revealed towards the end of the movie. Many of the underlying troubles behind the white picket fence American dream are depicted in the film, as well as the difficulties many Americans have in feeling free and recognizing their own identity. The video depicts the very different worlds that individuals may inhabit while yet living on the same street, as well as the chaos and chaos that lurk beneath the surface of a society that we all strive to present as ideal as possible. As a result, American Beauty demonstrates that the only way to bring order to the chaos is to look for beauty in everything. To properly comprehend and empathize with the relentless bombardment of symbolism that is frequently portrayed in this picture, it is necessary to "look closer." American Beauty explores issues such as the deception of passion, power, and looks, as well as the necessity to remind ourselves "...of all the beauty there is in the world," as beauty is subjective. Beauty, on the other hand, is the most important and extensively discussed subject in American Beauty (Karlyn 80). Another recurring motif in the film is the idea of the characters' journey and metamorphosis. Lester's path may be compared to that of a kid to an adult, figuratively speaking, as he enters a mature, paternal phase as an adult, when he takes responsibilities and finds meaning in life. A blurry picture of Jane Burnham resting on a bed, whining about her father, starts the film. In cinematic terminology, the scene opens with what is known as a flash forward. The remark "Someone really should just put him out of his misery" alludes to the father Lester's present mid-life crisis, as well as the manner in which she is aware of his suffering but not understanding what he genuinely desires (Karlyn 75). The spectator is given a look into the events that have just transpired thanks to the miser scene and cinematography used throughout the action. The ambiguous manner in which the statement "You want me to murder him for you?" is delivered tends to focus emphasis on Jane's reaction rather than the interviewer's intentions (Smith 1). Jane Burnham's daughter, as well as the anonymous interviewer, are now suspects in her father's imminent murder. The interviewer's cryptic approach, paired with the daughter's response, foreshadows what is to come later in the film, when each figure connected to the father is put up as a potential killer. The response of "Yeah, would you" to the previous sentence shows that she is virtually daring the interviewer to murder him by utilizing body language as a key means of communication (Smith 90). This is represented in the way she sits up, nearly making a change in power, and stares down and directly at the camera, but also insinuates some sarcasm on her part. Jane's father, Lester, is revealed to be not the parent she desires in the first lines of the film. The scene shifts to an overhead view of a neighborhood as the opening titles roll (Hewison 635). The use of an overhead view here gives the i...