American Dream According to American Beauty Film

Sam Mendes compelling film, “American Beauty,” reveals that the white picket fence American dream doesn't necessarily supply happiness to life. Full opportunity and social success, the exact concept of the American dream, is the particular mindset destroying the most significance of goals in life; happiness. This film takes the prospectors on an emotional journey through the internal relationships of a suburban neighborhood, where success is measured by the number of decimal points on a bank account statement. The idea that money is everything is prominent in this environment, which is how it accomplished to tear apart an already broken family, create monsters of materialistic lifestyles, and induce a need to live up to false appearances and images.

As the American dream believes that success is equivalent to money, Mendes challenges this belief by showing characters with and without money, then displaying their well being throughout the film. For Carolyn, Lester's wife, money represents a new start, full of hope and luxuries. She goes after the top real estate agent to gain power and confidence. Though Carolyn discovers pure bliss from pieces of paper the government prints off, she ends up going home to her family representing what the true American dream should be about, the stuff that actually matters. With Lester, the absence of his steady income brings a spark to his internal fire. It burns the loneliness, hate, and resent to replace it with his true aspirations and vulnerability. Yet, these two paths are quickly separating as Carolyn is money hungry and Lester is a newly found life enthusiast. Though all the characters in this film have their own odd materialistic ways about them, the fundamental idea they all have is very similar.

Another part of the American dream is to highly enjoy the luxuries of life, yet this is all happening in a negative way. Each character had valuable possessions of theirs that they felt were extremely relevant to their life. Colonel Frank Fitts took pride in his gun selection, the exact thing that killed Lester. Ricky, the Colonel's son, took pride in his camera, without his camera he would've never remembered the beauty in life. Carolyn took pride in all her possessions, obsessing over a couch or her clothes, which added to the makeup of the false appearances. And while pursuing this fantasy of an American dream we sacrifice what we really live for.

Along with this comes the fantasy of keeping up with the Joneses, which is evident in the movie because of where these characters live, they cannot show their true souls without being ridiculed, or even killed. The gay couple next door, the secretly gay Colonel, the virgin slut, and the unhappy wife, all have a similar set of common laws they abide by in order to match their false appearances. The theme that nothing is as it seems comes from these ideas.

Suburban, white America is destroying the reality of the actual American dream, “American Beauty.” To see all things beautiful, from a paper bag fighting against the wind, struggling to play with the leaves, to a naked female body that homes the future generations. life is about the subtle things, the everyday beauty in the foundations of this world, and money, is not one. Money, can however buy a materialistic lifestyle creating false emotions and misleading happiness.