Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is living in a suburban hell; he hates his job, his marriage has run dry, his wife is obsessed with advancing her career and he barely speaks to his daughter. His outlook begins to change, however, when he meets his daughter's attractive friend Angela (Mena Suvari) and decides to start working out to impress her. Soon after, he meets Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), a teenage drug dealer who rekindles his pot-smoking habit. As Lester begins to restructure his life to the way he enjoys it, his wife and daughter begin to change their own lives... at the cost of their relationships with each other.
Who's in it?
Kevin Spacey leads as Lester Burnham, and it's one of his best (if not his single best) performances. Lester Burnham is not really at all likeable, but thanks to Spacey, we still want him to succeed in his efforts to escape his soulless life. The audience can feel every moment of anger, lust, confusion, and elation as his transformation progresses. Annette Bening plays Lester's wife, Carolyn, who brings some scenes of raw emotional pain to the film, and keeps the proceedings from sinking into comedy. Thora Birch is Jane Burnham, Lester's daughter, in a role that captures the confusion of a teenage misfit perfectly; Jane hates her home life, her father is infatuated with her best friend, and she desperately wants to avoid becoming like her parents. Wes Bentley is the film's most interesting character in the role of Jane's boyfriend, Ricky Fitts, a drug dealer and obsessive videographer with an eye for seeing beauty in the everyday world around him. Bentley gives Ricky an almost inhuman confidence in an understated performance that leaves the audience wishing they knew more about him.
How's the production?
For a debut film, Sam Mendes shows an impressive mastery of filmmaking. There is little in the way of flashy effects or techniques, with Mendes allowing the compelling narrative and interplay between the characters to hold the audience's attention. In an inspired move, Mendes uses rose petals as a symbol of Lester's desire for the teenage Angela. Another potent symbol is found in the video Ricky shoots of a paper bag being blown around by the wind, which becomes a symbol for his view on life, that beauty can be found every day, everywhere around us. The clip is almost hypnotic, drawing the audience's attention and making them think about how much beauty really can be found around them.
The Greatest Scene:
Jane and Angela are talking in Jane's room when they notice Ricky filming them through his window. Angela, who considers Ricky a freak, teases him by posing in the window. Instead of focusing on her, he zooms in past the sex symbol to look at Jane's reflection in a mirror, introducing us to the "look closer" philosophy he uses to find the true beauty in the ugly world around him.
Personal Impressions:
The story of middle-aged, middle-class people trying to escape their boring suburban life has been told many times before, but Sam Mendes manages to tell it in a way that makes what could be a pile of cliches hit the audience hard and forces them to look at the problems and troubles of modern life. Part of the film's power lies in the contrast between the adults and teenagers experiences and views on life; Lester sees himself living in an ugly and boring world where he must make himself stand out, while Ricky accepts that he is only one person in a world filled with hidden beauty. Ultimately, however, they all live in the same world, and its the one we live in every day too. These themes of finding beauty and giving meaning to life allow this film to make the audience think about how they view the world, and may make them stop and, as Ricky does, look closer.
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