{"id":33244,"date":"2020-04-15T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/?p=33244"},"modified":"2025-12-04T22:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T21:28:07","slug":"american-beauty-quand-lamour-na-point-dage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/en\/cinema\/films\/american-beauty-quand-lamour-na-point-dage\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00abAmerican Beauty, when love has no age limit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cinema Wednesdays - Special edition: Love in the movies<\/a> - Loris S. Musumeci<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00abLove has no age, it is always incipient.\u00bb Blaise Pascal<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Sam Mendes is off to a strong start. In addition to the recent 1917<\/a> <\/em>(2020) or the James Bond Skyfall<\/em> (2012) and Spectrum<\/em> (2015), he has directed a number of other films, all very good, including Les Noces Rebelles<\/em> (2008) with the duo titanic<\/em> DiCaprio Winslet. But his first feature remains his best to date. The year 1999 saw the birth of a brilliant director and a brilliant film in equal measure. American Beauty<\/em> received the standing ovation it deserved, winning several Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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And yet the film tells the most banal story of the average American family. With the exception that the main character and narrator announces in voice-over that in less than a year, he'll be dead. This main character is Lester (Kevin Spacey), the family man who introduces himself, again via voice-over at the beginning of the film, as those closest to him consider him: \u00abMy wife and daughter consider me a miserable loser.\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read also: Uncut Gems<\/em>a loser with a winner's smile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From pitiful loser, scorned by his family and his boss at the newspaper where he has worked for fourteen years as a freelancer, Lester decides to become a \"man of the people\". winner<\/em>. Stop the submission! Stop living a shitty life, with a shitty family, with a shitty boss, in a shitty little house, in a shitty neighborhood, with shitty neighbors. Lester wants to assert himself in front of his wife Carolyn (Annette Bening), while trying to find the girl he loved in her, and finally wants a little respect from his daughter Jane (Thora Birch), with whom he is simultaneously trying to renew a bond of friendship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, Lester wants to finally start living. Free, happy, carefree and handsome. All because he's fallen in love with a dreamy teenager, Angela (Mena Suvari). Problem number one: Angela is Jane's best friend, which is kind of awkward. Problem number two: both girls are aware of Lester's passion for love - Angela, flattered, plays along; Jane, on the other hand, is so ashamed she wishes her father were dead. Problem number three: a series of misunderstandings that will mean that \u00abin less than a year\u00bb, Lester will be dead. Murdered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A comic tragedy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

American Beauty<\/em> may tell the tragic story of an average American, but it doesn't shy away from humor. It's worth noting that the film is situated somewhere between an auteur film, for its richness in terms of artistic image work and symbolism, and a comedy, through the change in Lester's character as he awakens from a long sleep of slavery. The source of Lester's comedy lies primarily in the identification he enables the viewer to make. In the end, the rather silent, rather submissive, rather despised father of the family finds himself in the outright Lester. loser<\/em> at the beginning of the film. And then he'd dream of daring to rebel like him. It's a real pleasure, and one that makes you laugh out loud, to see Lester violently throw the asparagus dish against the dining room wall so that his wife and daughter will finally listen to him. Or watching him play with a remote-controlled car in his living room, to the fury of his wife. Lester is comical insofar as he embodies so many men's dreams of rebellion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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