The movie depicts us a so-called average American family: husband, wife and their teenage daughter. They live in a nice green neighbourhood in a nice house with a pretty garden where they just moved in. The man has a good job, the wife works as a real estate agent and their daughter is angry at the whole world like most teenagers in her age but attends a dancing school. And they all are really deeply stuck in their routine, their usual deathly boring gut of life until some day something changes and make them all think seriously about their life and its meaning.
The film narrates from the husband's point of view but the other characters also take considerable part in it. It shows how suddenly can the habitual mode of life be shaken and it does not require much, sometimes even a trifle is enough to make you realize the actual meaning of your life for you.
So one day Lester (the husband) is fired from his job. Without warning and any explanation. Yet he manages by blackmailing to get a whole year salary and thus is able to keep himself for a while. Carolyn (his wife) tries hard to sell a house and no matter how confident she feels she just cannot sell it and she feels frustrated. The daughter Jane is pursued by a strange neighbour who constantly films her with a digital camera. She is irritated at first but later they become friends.
The husband gradually realizes that the life he led till now was boring and meaningless. He haven't lived for himself. He decides to change: a few remarks about him said by a beautiful daughter's friends make him go in for sport. Meanwhile he takes the job in McDonald's. His wife meets a successful businessman to learn more about professional secrets. The daughter falls in love with her new boyfriend who is a drug dealer. And we see how all the character gradually change and reveal their hidden personalities. The evolution of the main character is especially amazing and interesting.
So the film shows true and false personalities, the play of masks and identities. Those who seemed successful are in fact deeply injured people trying to cover their frustration under the mask of success. Losers happen to be self-realized men with huge potential. The plain people have a beautiful soul while the beautiful are often very ordinary. The crazy might understand more than the the one in his right mind. It shows that there is beauty in the ordinary and ordinary in the beautiful. Nothing is black or white, there is range of all grades of gray.
It's difficult to relate the plot as in spite of this commonplace theme it is poetic. The film is full of symbols and suggestions that lies underneath and sometimes flow on the surface. There is beautiful music that takes you in completely. The scenes are very graphical and it also adds to the total impact. The actors are excellent: Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening are famous stars but other actors play wonderfully well too. It is the movie that stands aside the general trend, full of paradoxes and poetry, and surely leaves a strong impression that lasts long afterwards. In spite of the sad end it does not sound pessimistic but rather deals poetically with the theme of boredom and frustration and shows ways out of it. And it has a perfect esthetic representation.
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