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"Welcome to America's
Weirdest Home Videos" - an apt line from American
Beauty — director Sam Mendes and screenwriter
Alan Ball's stark art set piece of individual torment and
family calamity. Familiar territory immediately reminiscent
of Ordinary People
and The
Ice Storm (films that influenced Mendes, Premiere
10/99), American
Beauty is a Dramatica grand argument story that
compels us to "look closer" at pain and mundane
and life will reveal the spectacular.
INANITY
Main character Lester
Burnham recounts in voice-over: "I'm forty-two-years
old. In less than a year, I'll be dead. In a way, I'm dead
already. . . . Both my wife and daughter think I'm this gigantic
loser (overall story problem-perception). And they're right
(main character problem-perception). I've lost something very
important. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I know I didn't
always feel this . . . sedated (main character focus-inertia).
But you know what? It's never too late to get it back"
(main character growth-start).
At Lester's ad agency,
it has been decided (overall story driver) that: ". .
. everyone write a job description, mapping out in detail
how they contribute. That way, management can assess who's
valuable and who's 'expendable'" (overall story concern
conceptualizing). Lester objects (main character approach-do-er)
to this "fascist" order (overall story focus) —
wife Carolyn, a study in glacial ambition, asserts: "There
is no decision. Just write the damn thing! . . . you don't
want to be unemployed" (overall story direction-chaos).
Lester sulkily attends
daughter Jane's high school dance performance with Carolyn:
"What makes you so sure she wants us to be there? Did
she ask us to come? . . . I'm missing the James Bond marathon
on TNT."
Jane's best friend and
fellow "Dancing Pantherette" Angela Hayes (allusion
to Nabokov's Lolita Haze?) catapults Lester out of his malaise:
"I feel like I've been in a coma for about twenty years
(main character concern-past), and I'm just now waking up"
(main character growth-start) — priming him for impact
character Ricky Fitts.
Apathetically escorting
Carolyn to a realtor's function: "Lester, listen to me.
This is important . . . as you know, my business is selling
an image (overall story problem-perception) . . . do me a
favor and act happy" (overall story benchmark-being)
— Lester is approached by Ricky, a waiter in the hotel:
RICKY: I'm Ricky Fitts. I just moved into the house next to
you....Hey, do you party? (main character vs. impact character
storyline concern-doing)
LESTER: I'm sorry?
RICKY: Do you get high?
"Lester's surprised,
but instantly intrigued. . . . Ricky and Lester stand next
to a dumpster behind the service entrance to the hotel, smoking
a JOINT (main character versus impact character storyline
thematic issue-senses). . . . Suddenly . . . a serious young
MAN in a cheap suit peers out at them. Ricky hides the joint."
MAN: (to Ricky) Look.
I'm not paying you to . . . (eyes Lester suspiciously) . .
. do whatever it is you're doing out here (main character
vs. impact character storyline catalyst-interpretation).
RICKY: Fine. Don't pay me. . . . I quit (impact character
driver-change). Now, leave me alone.
LESTER: I think
you just became my personal hero (main character vs. impact
character storyline concern-understanding). Doesn't that make
you nervous, just quitting your job like that?
RICKY: . . . I just do these gigs every now and then as a
cover. . . . But my dad (impact character domain-mind) interferes
a lot less in my life when I pretend (overall story benchmark-being)
to be an upstanding young citizen with a respectable job (overall
story problem-perception).
Like all the overall
characters in American
Beauty, Ricky has his own agenda (overall story
domain-psychology). Taking Jane in with an ardent video gaze
— he is captivated:
JANE: What is
it?
ANGELA: It's that
psycho next door. . .
JANE: I bet he's
filming us right now.
Voyeurism and exhibitionism
loop, as through the camera lens Ricky seeks out Jane from
his bedroom window:
"On VIDEO: We're
across from Jane's window, peering in. Jane tries to shut
the drapes, but Angela won't let her. Irritated, Jane retreats
into the room. We ZOOM toward her, even as Angela poses in
the window, waving, but we're clearly not interested in Angela.
The ZOOM continues, searching for Jane . . . . Finally, we
settle on the full-length MIRROR on the open closet door,
where we see a REFLECTION of Jane . . . . She's smiling."
Lester continues to
be directed by change: "It's a great thing to realize
you still have the ability to surprise yourself. Makes you
wonder what else you can do that you've forgotten about .
. ."
He meets Ricky's father,
Colonel Frank Fitts, U.S. Marine Corps-a man locked in a perpetual
vise grip of impotent rage — always suspicious (impact
character thematic counterpoint) of what goes on in his son's
life. Immoral and/or illegal:
RICKY: . . . G-13 . . . genetically engineered by the US Government.
Extremely potent. But a completely mellow high, no paranoia.
. . . Two grand.
LESTER: . . . Well, now I know how you can afford all this
equipment. When I was your age, I worked at McDonald's all
summer just to buy an 8 track. . . . it was probably the best
time of my life (main character concern-past).
RICKY: My dad thinks I paid for all this [audio/video equipment]
with catering jobs. Never underestimate the power of denial
(overall story inhibitor-senses).
Lester and Carolyn's
marriage is another relationship in denial:
CAROLYN: This
is not a marriage.
LESTER: This hasn't been a marriage for years. But you were
perfectly happy as long as I kept my mouth shut. Well, guess
what? I've changed (main character direction).
The changes include
Lester quitting his job (after blackmailing his boss for a
sweet severance package), hiring on at a fast food restaurant,
and indulging in adolescent fantasies (overall story dividend-the
past). Incensed, Carolyn relieves her stress by boffing Leonard
Kane — The Real Estate King — and obsessively shooting
a "Glock 19" automatic revolver at the local firing
range.
Ricky confides his fierce
obsession to Jane: "I knew there was this entire life
behind things, and . . . this incredibly benevolent force,
that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid. Ever.
Video's a poor excuse. But it helps remember . . . and I need
to remember . . ." (impact character concern-memory)
Ricky must recall all
instances of beauty to survive as the only child of a desensitized
(overall story inhibitor-senses) mother and militaristic father:
COLONEL: You need structure, you need discipline (impact character
focus-order).
INSANITY
Ultimately, the fairytale of an American family (overall story
goal-conceptualizing) fractures(outcome-failure):
LESTER: Remember
those posters that said, "Today is the first day of the
rest of your life" Well, that's true of every day except
one. The day you die.
A day of cataclysmic
decisions.
Colonel Fitts misinterprets
(main character vs. impact character storyline thematic counterpoint)
the relationship between Lester and Ricky as homosexual. An
avowed homophobic — he brutally evicts his son from their
home. The Colonel is only repressing his own feelings (overall
story solution-actuality). Unpredictably (main character thematic
issue) he kisses Lester on the mouth. Lester compassionately
rebuffs his advances, unaware of the impossible circumstances
(overall story catalyst) in which the Colonel now (overall
story forewarnings-present) finds himself.
Ricky asks Jane to run
away with him:
RICKY: If I had
to leave tonight, would you come with me? If I went to New
York. To live. Tonight. Would you come with me?
JANE: Yes.
Angela, alienated from
Jane and Ricky, is determined to follow through with her seductive
promise to Lester. Until:
ANGELA: This is my first time (overall story solution-actuality).
Reality check (main
character solution-actuality). Lester decides not to deflower
this American beauty (main character resolve-change).
Morality gives way to
mortality. The Colonel silently returns and takes a gun to
Lester. Carolyn, arriving on the scene, gathers Lester's empty
suits in her arms, understanding (overall story consequence)
the husband she so contemptuously dismissed, is really gone
(limit-optionlock).
HUMANITY
Lester takes his demise philosophically:
LESTER: . . . it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty
in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once
(main character mental process-intuitive), and it's too much,
my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst . .
. and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on
to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't
feel anything but gratitude for every single moment (main
character judgement-good) of my stupid little life . . .
A life of artifice and
the ordinary redeemed by an appreciation for the extraordinary.
Please
note: An earlier version of this article is published on www.dramatica.com
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