American Beauty: Of Adulthood and Life Transitions

American steady is one of the most well-received movies of our time. As the screen ledger entry of screenwriter Alan B all and director Sam Mendes, the movie has won m any(prenominal) Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It was a good demonstration of antithetical psychological and social themes such as deviancy, romantic and paternal love, sexuality, and beauty.The movies focus is Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey). In fact, as the narrator, Lester is the revolving point of most of the movie. American Beauty paints how he was a year before he died and how hes salmagundid through the year that eventually led to his death.But the movie also focus on former(a) interesting characters most notable of which are his married woman Carolyn (Annette Bening), daughter Jane (Thora Birch), Janes friend Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari), and the neighbor Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley). Almost all of these characters bear a specific deviant nature and are almost on either poles of the social sphere.Wat ching Lester, Carolyn, Jane, Angela, and Ricky, one realizes that stack really do change behavior based on previous experiences. Although Berk (2004), in her book exploitation Through the Life Span, talked mainly about the change of relationship between parent and child through operant conditioning, this discussion is useful in explaining the hostile relationship between Jane and her parents.As Jane has come to learn from previous experiences, any attempt at trying to bond the family falls into deaf ears hence, shes taken to keeping her mouth shut and maintaining a distant carriage from her father and mother.Perhaps, this type of learning can also aid in understanding Angela. She is course insecure and afraid of being thought normal. But shes learned that putting up a mien and projecting a brazen image elicits a positive rejoinder from men since this eliminates her fears of being just a common person, she has maintained the state image.Lester and Carolyn also demonstrate how a dults react differently when on the brink of transitioning from their peak to old age. Lester copes with his shift to old age in a different manner than Carolyn in the sense that hes preferred to be sedated, to use his own terms.He felt that everything in his livelihood was going descending(prenominal) he was losing his job, he hasnt had sex with his wife in a long time, and he just doesnt find any aspects of his liveness exciting. Yet given over the right stimuli (in the person of Angela, whom he is obviously attracted to), he realizes that aging should not be the end of his life.He starts working out and bettering himself. He shows through his decision to quit his job, resume his teenage job as a fast food employee, and buy his dream car that sometimes, people regress while moving towards old age.Carolyn, however, has an opposite reaction. K straight offing that she now only has limited time, she goes down the serious route. She became more focused on her career and had lit tle time left for personal pleasure.Jane and Angela on the other hand, show teenagers metamorphosing into adults. Jane, realizing that most teenagers her age are already forming well-developed breasts, reacts to her maturation by desiring breast augmentation.Angela, though, who projects a confident stance, does not do or deficiency to do anything as drastic. In fact, it seems that she is unmindful of the possible biological changes that adulthood might bring to her current good looks.Lesters obsession with Angela has given him an energy boost. Suddenly, he finds the guts to stand up to his wife and beg for what he wants. Then he gets involved in a physical fitness regimen and dives into the use of marijuana (which he purchases from Ricky).This has eventually led to drastic changes in his family life Carolyn and he find themselves quarreling in front of Jane, who naturally forms greater hatred for her parents.Early in the film and towards the middle part, we get a glimpse at ho w Ricky feels about death. He thinks that death is nothing to annoying about and is something interesting to watch. This was apparent in the scene where he was put down a dead bird and describes it as beautiful.And the death of Lester reinforces this examining Lesters bloody body, Ricky utters, Wow. Lester also portrays a way of coping with death. Through his narration, he describes death as a sort of freedom and a culmination of everything that is happy.Using Lester as a narrator, Ball speaks of how the after life does exist and how it is something that we all have to go through at one point in our lives.American Beauty is not just another pretty, award-winning movie. It is an effective demonstration of how people react differently towards changes in life, specifically adulthood and life transitions.ReferencesMendes, Sam. (Director). (1999, October 1). American Beauty Motion picture. USA DreamWorks.Berk, Laura E. (2004). Development Through the Life Span. Boston,