Character Notes
Every character starts off as if they're going to be one thing but then they
become another. The movie peels back layers and reveals so much more. . .
Our relationship with the characters shifted and changed. What was this man
Lester doing? Acting like a spoiled child or raging against the dying of the
light? His wife Carolyn? Furious and frigid, yet vulnerable and lost. Jane?
Impassive, unreadable, but with a well of tenderness barely visible to the
naked eye. And Ricky. His camera emotionlessly recording its subject or
reaching out to touch it?
Sam Mendes
Lester hurls a plate of asparagus against the wall to shock his family into
recognising his existence. Carolyn, who finds no solace in an affair with a real
estate king, slaps her daughter and even herself to feel alive. Angela seeks
validation that she's not "ordinary" by playing the cock tease. Out of deep
loneliness, the rigid colonel beats Ricky, who turns to Jane for the comfort he
can't find at home. And in this love story, touchingly played by Birch and
Bentley, a healing tenderness breaks through the isolation.
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Lester Burnham/ Kevin Spacey

a suburban Everyman whose life comes apart; and who makes a journey
from self-disgust, self-loathing, cynicism to freedom and self-expression, to
his ultimate redemption and his death.

at the start: apathetic, 'sedated', a figure to be laughed at and despised; his
body language is defeated

he is so miserable with himself that he has almost shut himself out of the
world; he is unable to communicate with either wife or daughter – he can't
break through and they are long past listening

his wife drives him everywhere = a symbol of his lack of drive or volition; he
drives after he quits his job

When Carolyn drags him to a basketball game, he complains about missing
"the James Bond marathon on TNT"

he "liberates" himself by throwing off his hypocritical façades - including his
dehumanising corporate job, and any pretence that he cares about anything
but his own appetites

he reverts to adolescence – he gets a job in a burger joint, buys toys, a car,
gets fit - as he tries to recapture the remembered joy of his youth.

his infatuation with Angela is the catalyst – though he thinks it is the goal;
he becomes – temporarily – a sexual predator

he can be nasty, cruel, arrogant, superior; he humiliates his wife several
times, yet is able to say to her, "I want you to be happy."

with Angela and Fitts he is gentle, understanding, compassionate (qualities
Ricky has shown all along).

in the end, he redeems himself by turning back from being a sexual
predator to becoming a father again. He comforts Angela instead of
seducing her; he asks – genuinely – about Jane and is happy with what he is
told.

his epiphany is the realisation that he is OK, that he has found himself again.
# Kevin Spacey, in a knockout performance, nails every comic and poignant
nuance in the role; his ironic voice-over at the start is a comedy of resigned
desperation.
Quotations

And in a way, I'm dead already.

Both my wife and daughter think I'm this gigantic loser, and... they're right.

Oh, well, let's just all sell our souls and work for Satan, because it's more
convenient that way.

Jane: Could he be any more pathetic?

I'm just an ordinary guy with nothing to lose.

I'm looking for the least possible amount of responsibility.

I'm sick and tired of being treated like I don't exist. You two do whatever
you want to do whenever you want to do it and I don't complain. All I want
is the same courtesy – … Don't interrupt me, honey!

I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid
little life...
Mendes on Lester
Much of what Lester does ought to be ludicrous and pathetic. Amazingly it
isn't, thanks to the warmth and empathy of Spacey's performance and to the
sensitive momentum of the film. Lester does some terrible things to the
people who are closest to him. He does things that are irrational and stupid
and angry and childish. But somehow he doesn't lose your sympathy. A lot of
the ridiculous things he does are set in a very careful, complex story structure
that creates a bond with the audience. Alan [Ball] has done that instinctively and I made the film instinctively. In the end you can articulate too much, you
just have to do it and see.
Mendes on Spacey
Kevin is just an exceptional actor. Comedically, he's brilliant - his timing is
impeccable - and he was one of the few actors who I felt was going to be able
to convince me that he was a normal person, a sort of contemporary everyman
figure. I also needed someone who could be very vulnerable at the beginning
of the story and gradually grow in strength. I thought that transformation
would appeal to him, so I really pursued him for the role.
Kevin Spacey on Lester Burnham
I think Lester is very much like a lot of men in American life, who start out
having certain ideas about the kind of life they will have, but somewhere along
the line, they get squashed down. Something happens to Lester that promotes
change, that makes him remember the things he wanted. He suddenly realizes
the lack of honesty in his life, the lack of communication - not being able to say
what he actually feels and do what he actually wants. He's grappling with
feelings that have long been dormant, but have been reawakened in him. It's
not so much a mid-life crisis, but rather a sort of rebirth. He begins to realize
how precious life is... a realisation that's in some ways too late."
Over the course of the story, Lester Burnham transforms his middle-aged
paunch into a lean and fit shadow of his former self. To depict this
metamorphosis, Spacey embarked on a regimen of diet and exercise, working
out with a trainer twice a day in a special gym housed in a large truck near the
set.
"The physical transformation was the biggest challenge for me in the film,"
Spacey said. "I start the film as sort of a schlub - bad posture, overweight - and
through the course of the story completely change my appearance. It was very
time consuming and demanded a great deal of commitment, but on the other
hand, I saw results pretty quickly, which was inspiring. It dramatically changed
not only my eating habits but my energy level; they had to hit me over the
head with a hammer to make me fall asleep at night.
The Critics
Lester Burnham, played with heavenly finesse by Kevin Spacey in his wittiest
and most agile screen performance yet, is a buttoned-down 42-year-old who
desperately needs to stop and smell the roses. But he won't get much joy from
the ones in his suburban yard. "Red 1970 Firebird, the car I always wanted and
now I have it," says Lester of his new vehicle, the one that suits his new career
at a fast food restaurant. "I rule!" Spacey's way of wringing every bit of nasty
hilarity out of a line like that is itself worth the price of admission.
Janet Maslin, NY Times
Kevin Spacey gives a truly great performance. He's cynical. He's funny. He's
angry. He's rueful. He's a mean truth teller and sometimes a curiously tender
one. Best of all, he makes the transitions between these and a dozen other
emotions heedlessly, without warning or visible preparation. You never know
where he's coming from, or where he's going to end up in a scene. Yet boldly
challenging our sympathies, he somehow wins them because, to borrow a
phrase, he's a man in full.
Richard Schickel, Time
But for Lester, this is a battle of mythic and heroic proportions. He is trying to
save his soul, trying to prepare himself to face death - although he doesn't
know it's coming so soon - with no regrets. Spacey turns in a richly comic
performance as a man visibly intoxicated by his every impulse. [He] seems
infused with an inexplicable glee. He can't tell good ideas from bad ones, and
relishes the fact that he doesn't know what will happen next.
Andrew
O'Hehir, Salon.com
And Spacey, an actor who embodies intelligence in his eyes and voice, is the
right choice for Lester Burnham. He does reckless and foolish things in this
movie, but he doesn't deceive himself; he knows he's running wild - and
chooses to, burning up the future years of an empty lifetime for a few flashes
of freedom. He may have lost everything by the end of the film, but he's no
longer a loser.
James Kendrick
Of course, Kevin Spacey is the secret weapon in all of this, and American
Beauty would be unimaginable without him. There is an enigmatic slyness
about Spacey that has had him cast for a long time as a sexually ambiguous
bad guy… a certain kind of a charm, a slyness that works with this comedy with Lester's transformations from dead-end wage slave to nervous and
tongued-tied obsessive to self-invented stud - and a mockingness that can
send up Lester's predicament while bringing a strange sympathy to it. Spacey
makes for a jaundiced and morally ambiguous comic lead.
Philip Matthews, NZ Listener
Carolyn Burnham / Annette Bening

a social-climbing real estate agent who wears her fake plastic smile and
chipper laugh like a badge of honour.

she chants self-help mantras, listens to motivational tapes, likes bland
'elevator music'

she confuses happiness with success - bad enough if you're successful,
depressing if you're not.

emotionally clenched, intense, desperate for success; over-wrought, always
stressed

important to her: her rose garden, expensive surroundings, an image of
success, but not her husband; she has a strong sense of her own superiority
over Lester

she tries to be a good mother though does not know or understand her
daughter

sees the surfaces only; and thinks if something looks good, it must be good;
her desperate cleaning of the ugly house symbolises her approach to life

at the end of a day's hard labour and no sale, she collapses into a paralysed
huddle of screaming insecurity

she refuses to be beaten; her indomitable will and preference for trying to
put a brave face on things is surely admirable.

is rejuvenated by her affair with Buddy – someone she admires values her

enjoys the power shooting a gun gives her, at the same time as she is losing
any control in her home

both Lester and Jane reject her values; in desperation she slaps Jane the
way she slaps herself
# She is the least sympathetic of the characters. There is more than an
element of caricature in her; her behaviour seems often to be dictated by
needs of the plot more than by her character. It is a very one-sided
portrait; even the Colonel is shown more compassion than Carolyn.
# This marriage has two people in it, yet Carolyn gets all the blame. In the
couch scene, Lester over-reacts to her comment, which isn't so bad, really.
He is equally to blame for allowing it to break the mood. He berates her for
valuing "stuff", but he has just said he "rules" because he has bought
himself a new car – his "stuff". Either the film or Lester is a hypocrite.
Quotations

Lester: Oh, what, you're mother-of-the-year? You treat her like an
employee.

As you know, my business is selling an image. And part of my job is to live
that image.

Angela: What a phoney.

You cannot count on anyone except yourself.
Mendes on Carolyn and Annette Bening
If you'd asked me who Carolyn Burnham was before we began filming, I'd have
given a totally different answer. Annette brought so much to the character
that she surprised me, and I think, at times, surprised even herself.
Carolyn's obsessed with her image of success - to be well-respected in the
community, wear the right clothes and have a nice garden... things that many
people depend upon to give themselves a sense of identity and well-being. In
that respect, she's not that different from thousands of people, including many
of my friends and indeed me.
Annette Bening on Carolyn
Carolyn really doesn't have any insight into what Lester's problem is, or, for
that matter, what her own problem is. She doesn't even know at first that
there is a problem, but Lester begins to change, so consequently Carolyn is
forced to change. Carolyn is like many people who feel an emptiness in their
lives and try to fill it up with having the right things. She believes if you have
the right car and the right house and even the right garden, then somehow
your life will turn out all right. . . . When I read the script, I instantly felt I was
on familiar ground. The people and their problems and the things they go
through are things to which we can all relate today.
The Critics
Carolyn is a much bigger problem, although I don't know whether to blame
Mendes, the script or Bening, whose formidable acting chops are expended on
a feverish, sexually repressed demon whose few tiny moments of possible
redemption are undermined by burlesque. This is a woman who, as Lester tells
us in his opening voice-over, has matching pruning shears and gardening clogs.
In case we haven't figured out that she's the embodiment of American
materialism, the script lays it out for us. When Carolyn snaps at Lester for
nearly spilling his drink on the couch, he responds, "This is just stuff. And it's
become more important to you than living. And, honey, that's nuts." She
literally beats herself up after failing to sell a house … and prostitutes herself to
a rival realtor. Perhaps it's not surprising that Carolyn hates both herself and
Lester so much. But both parties in a dreadful marriage are always
simultaneously the authors and victims of their situation, and absent some
understanding of that, American Beauty turns Carolyn into a misogynist
caricature for no good purpose.
Andrew
O'Hehir, Salon.com
Still, when contrasted to Carolyn's obsessive-compulsive materialism that has
no real meaning, we can see why the movie is on Lester's side and therefore
has to force Annette Bening into such a caricatured performance. Carolyn
never finds her voice except in a pathetic affair with the absurd local real
estate "king".
James Kendrick
Jane Burnham / Thora Birch

quiet, intense, serious – a deep girl; isolated in her dysfunctional family

great tenderness, capacity to love, to see what is important

low self-esteem – why else would she even consider she needs a boob job?

Lacks the love she needs from her parents; Carolyn is critical; Lester ignores
her.

deliberately makes herself look unattractive; Angela makes her feel even
less self-worth

in the Spartanette performance, there is a wooden and mechanical intensity
suggesting she has to work to do the steps, cf. the cheerfulness of the other
girls

Ricky's attention gives her some sense that she is valued by someone; in
turn, she is able to see past his reputation to the mature and passionate boy
behind, and to value him.

She lacks his understanding, compassion, tolerance – but then she is only
16, and has not been through what he has been through.

Lester: Janie's a pretty typical teenager. Angry, insecure, confused.

Carolyn: Jane. Honey. Are you trying to look unattractive?

I mean, hello. You've barely even spoken to me for months.

Carolyn: She's just wilful.

Carolyn: You ungrateful little brat. Just look at everything you have.

Ricky: I can't believe you don't know how beautiful you are.

Lester: You better watch yourself, Janie, or you're going to turn into a real
bitch, just like your mother.

And we'll always be freaks and we'll never be like other people
Birch is terrific as the moody and absent Jane, who has long ago given up on
both her parents (though it's highly unlikely that this disaffected girl would be
a cheerleader.)
Ricky Fitts / Wes Bentley

intense stare, a soulful intensity, deep feelings; mysterious, confident, selfassured, articulate,

treats his mother with such tenderness, such gentleness; tolerant and
understanding of his father; great compassion: "He's not a bad man."

smart: plays his father's game with skill, tells him what he wants to hear;
sees past the flashy looks of Angela to the more interesting Jane

he films not out of voyeurism but out of a desire to 'remember' and to 'look
closer'; in his monologue that explains a great deal about himself and the
world, he shows that he is simply looking for beauty with his camera.

Bentley's qualities of stillness, of intensity, make Ricky at first creepy and
disturbing; later, they give him a certainty and confidence that Jane finds
compelling.

He is the most mature, the most 'together' of the characters;

streak of spiritualism; he carries the weight of the central theme – his ability
to see beauty in unlikely places

Jane: That's the pervert who filmed me last night.
Angela: He's a freak.
I didn't mean to scare you. I just think you're interesting. . . I'm not
obsessing. I'm just curious.
Jane: He's like, so confident. That can't be real.
But my dad interferes less in my life when I pretend to be an upstanding
young citizen with a respectable job.
When you see something like that, it's like God is looking right at you, just
for a second. And if you're careful, you can look right back.
Fitts: This is for your own good, boy. You have no respect for other
people's things, for authority, for . . .






[Lester] has a dark and problematical double, the weird, smart boy next
door. His name is Ricky. He deals drugs underneath the crazy nose of his
abusive father, a retired Marine colonel of the neo-fascist persuasion, and
creepily stalks Lester's daughter with his ever-present camcorder, eventually
winning her because of the purity of his subversive nature. He is, perhaps,
everything Lester might have been, if he had not long ago compromised
himself. This also, perhaps, explains why Jane falls in love with him.
Ricky is a disturbing presence. Prior to Littleton, he might have been
dismissed as an improbable one. But that tragedy - created by kids held in
contempt by their peers and able to conduct a criminal life free of parental
interference - gives him a peculiar, if entirely coincidental, resonance. He is
not, in the end, the tragedy's primary victim, but he is its precipitator, and the
instructor of the complacency that it is the business of this movie to shatter.
Richard Schickel, Time
Colonel Frank Fitts / Chris Cooper

ramrod ex-Marine remarkably out of touch with modern society

suspicious, over-protective, a control freak, untrusting (with good reason)
yet easy to fool

oblivious to his son's drug activities – "the power of self-denial" – and
ignores his near-comatose wife.

desperately inarticulate in his attempts to communicate with his son;
violence is the only method he knows

homophobic to the point of paranoia – the reason becomes clear at the
very end. It makes Ricky's escape possible and indeed easy.

Ricky is remarkably tolerant of this "sad old man" and his abuse
# What is truly astonishing in the round of awards for acting in this film is that
Cooper did not feature. His performance is every bit as brilliant (if not as
sympathetic) as Spacey's, particularly the scenes when he tries – and fails –
to articulate his feelings for Ricky, and the heartbreak of the final scene with
Lester. It may be that it takes several viewings to see past the ugly exterior
of the man to the pathos and tragedy underneath.
[Cooper won an Oscar in 2002 for a fine performance in Adaptation, but he
deserved it so much more for this film; it is typical of the way Hollywood so
often rewards actors for the wrong performance.]

This country is going straight to hell.

How come these faggots always have to rub it in your face? How can they
be so shameless?

Ricky: My dad thinks I pay for all this with catering jobs. Never
underestimate the power of denial.

This is for your own good, boy.
Colonel Fitts is the movie's one true enemy and its one weak spot. Fitts is a
cruel, homophobic fascist who beats Ricky and runs his house with such an
iron grip that his wife seems to have slipped into a permanent medicated state
of passive denial. Fitts is painted as such an extreme character (his fascism
being even more extreme than Lester's indulgence), that is impossible to deny
that at some point he will crack.
Kendrick
Angela Hayes / Mena Suvari

self-absorbed, obsessed with her looks; talks dirty to hide tremendous
insecurity

basks in Lester's admiration; is more than miffed when Ricky ignores her; is
devastated by Ricky's dismissal of her
# Suvari plays the role with highly convincing hunger and depth.

… there's nothing worse in life than being ordinary.

I am so sick of people taking their insecurities out on me.

Ricky: She's not your friend. She's somebody you use to feel better about
yourself.

Ricky: Yes, you are [ugly]. And you're boring. And you're totally ordinary.
And you know it.

Lester: You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
The minor characters are sharply drawn:

Ricky's mother Barbara (a brilliant Alison Janney) lives in her own world of
silence and polished furniture. She is able to convey so much emotion, so
much love without words; so much heartbreak in the turn of a head. The
almost wordless final scene, when Ricky leaves, is devastating in its
emotional intensity. Although none of her story is told, we have no doubt
about what her married life has been like.

Buddy Kane is a rival – and successful - real estate agent; Peter Gallagher
plays him with subtle skill

a gay couple – the two Jims (Scott Bakula, Sam Robards) - represent the
only functional relationship in the film; their warmth is a contrast with the
coldness in the two marriages

Brad, an 'efficiency expert' (Barry Del Sherman) who pretends to be 'one of
the good guys' while basically threatening Lester with loss of his job; when
he gets his comeuppance is a scene of much delight

a fast-food counter girl (Marissa Jaret Winokur) delivers the line “You are so
busted” with deadpan brilliance.

even the fast-food manager (Dennis Anderson) – a pimply boy – is
distinctive; the misery on his face that Lester causes him is wonderfully
funny