American Beauty

Lester Burnham, a suburban advertising writer numbed by routine, narrates his own last year of life. A chance sight of his daughter's self-possessed classmate jolts him into quitting his job, lifting weights, and smoking marijuana bought from the teenager next door. His wife Carolyn pours herself into real estate and an affair; his daughter Jane withdraws toward the watchful boy filming her from across the fence.

On release the film drew wide acclaim for its performances and Conrad Hall's cool, symmetrical images, and it swept the major Oscars. Critical standing has since cooled: later writers often read its suburban satire as schematic and its vision of teenage desire as dated, and Kevin Spacey's later disgrace further complicated its reputation.

For a psychodynamic reader the film stages midlife regression as a flight from mortality, with fantasy and the male gaze organised around rose petals and a girl who is largely a projection. The household's polished surfaces, the manicured lawn and the staged family dinner, conceal shame, control, and grief passed between parents and child.