“You’ll Understand [All Too Well] When You Get Older”

The Cinemark Movies 10 on Burbank road wasn’t terribly full that winter night of 1999.  Nevertheless, once the film ended the 50 or so people that were sharing a dark room for a screening of American Beauty didn’t move a muscle or say a word until at least ¾ of the credits had scrolled by.  It was one of maybe 5 times in my life that I have witnessed this type of public reaction to a film.  Slowly we all filed out, throwing all of our popcorn buckets, drained Cherry Cokes, and empty Goobers boxes into the proper receptacles.  I remember walking slowly behind a gentleman and following him all the way to the men’s room.  He was, most likely, about 50 years old. 

Because all men know that there are unwritten rules about talking to men that you don’t know at urinals, once I reached the sink I asked, “So what did you think of the film?”

The stranger gave a short response without making any eye contact, “I didn’t like it.”

“May I ask why?” I enquired.

“I go to the movies to escape,” he said, “and that was just too real for me.”

“Fair enough.”

Obviously his words stuck with me.  I mean, here we are about twelve years later, and I still remember them.  But make no mistake; my view regarding his opinion has changed over the years.

On that night and for quite a while afterward, I was honestly a little creeped out by the stranger’s remarks.  I remember thinking to myself…so does that mean that all “old men” just walk around fantasizing about high school girls?  Gross.  Are they not able to make the mental connection that the young women that they are attracted to are the same ages as their own children?  Double gross.  Do they not realize that this makes them appear publicly as “perverts?”  Triple gross.

I didn’t realize, like Jane and Ricky, just how young, and naïve some of my opinions were.  I did not, at that time, have enough life experience to see the full perspective on many of the film’s situations. 

American Beauty--Dreamworks Entertainment

Somehow…someway…mom and dad were right.  It’s like they knew when they told me over and over again, “You’ll understand when you get older,” that some type of magic buzzer of awareness would go off in my head sometime during my late 20s/early 30s.

Even though it is not talked about often in the media, many if not all men gauge their degree of self-worth on the sexual appraisals they receive.  Tell them they have a small penis—they feel worthless.  Say that you didn’t have an orgasm—they feel useless.  Regularly find reasons to avoid intercourse (headaches, exhaustion, “it’s Tuesday,” and more)—they feel cast away.  Choose to display that you no longer find your mate attractive anymore—they will be devastated.  And the list of potential examples could go on and on.

One scene from American Beauty explains quite a bit about the current status of Lester and Carolyn Burham’s relationship.  It is the perfect scene that backs up Lester’s earlier statement of, “She wasn’t always like this.  She used to be happy…we used to be happy.”  The scene takes place directly after Carolyn (Annette Bening) catches Lester (Kevin Spacey) masturbating while he thinks she’s asleep.

“Lester I will not live like this…this is not a marriage!”
“This hasn’t been a marriage for years, but you were happy as long as I kept my mouth shut.”
“Don’t you mess with me mister, I will divorce you so fast it will make your head spin.”
“On what grounds?  I’m not a drunk.  I don’t fuck other women.  I don’t mistreat you.  I’ve never hit you.  I don’t even try to touch you since you’ve made it so abundantly clear just how unnecessary you consider me to be.  But I did support you when you got your [real estate] license and some people would think that entitles me to half of what’s yours.”
“Oohhhh.”
“So…turn out the light when you come back to bed.” 

American Beauty--Dreamworks Entertainment

Lester’s smile reveals how relieved his character is to finally say these things.  But this scene also teaches us something else that is very important.  Lester stepped aside for a significant amount of time and put Carolyn’s needs and/or career aspirations ahead of his own.  We learn that Lester supported Carolyn while she was getting her real estate license.  It appears that he gave her space so that she could focus on her career, and by doing so it changed her.

We get a deeper look at this as Carolyn and Lester enter a local realtor business function.  At the event we hear her explain to her husband, “My business is selling an image, and part of my job is to live that image.”  And suddenly for the viewer a number of things make more sense…the appearance of their house, the difference in the quality levels of the cars that they drive, and more.  As time goes on it becomes more and more clear that Carolyn feels that Lester doesn’t contribute to her “image” in a positive way.  In fact, she even instructs him in front of one of her colleagues, “Honey, don’t be weird.”  You can even see with how the shot is framed (on a small flight of stairs) so that Lester is even being devalued visually.  He is positioned as the lowest person on these stairs, next our vision ascends to Carolyn, and then finally to Buddy “The Real Estate King” Kane (Peter Gallagher) at the top. 

After becoming a successful businesswoman, Carolyn began to fail to see Lester as a strong and powerful male figure in her life.  When it comes to physical attraction, it is no secret that many women are attracted to successful, powerful, or at the very least confident men; Carolyn Burham shows that she is no different when she tells Buddy, “I am in complete awe of you.”  

American Beauty--Dreamworks Entertainment

“There happens to be a lot about me that you don’t know, Mr. Smarty Man,” Carolyn says to her husband in one scene.  Yeah, no shit.  Having her secret affair allows her to find romantic, emotional, and sexual fulfillment from 9-to-5 while at the same time she is able to keep up her façade of a marriage that maintains her “image of success” every evening.  Carolyn is living a double-life that illustrates what Lester says later in the film, which is:

“Our marriage is just for show—a commercial for how normal we are.  But we’re anything but.”  

American Beauty--Dreamworks Entertainment

Once her infidelities are discovered, Lester boldly and correctly tells her, “No-no.  You don’t get to tell me what to do…ever…again.”  At this point Lester decides that he is going to change his life.  He determines that he has been hiding behind his own depression and that he is going to take better care of himself.  He begins working out, lifting weights, running.  He realizes that if his wife is no longer attracted to him that someone else will be.      

That brings us to Lester’s fantasy-based attraction for his daughter’s friend, Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari).  Does Lester look at Angela in such a sexual way because he’s a pervert or a pedophile?  Not in my opinion.  He looks at her that way, because she looks at him in the flirtatious manner that his wife used to.  Angela interacts with him in the same way that he, in fact, wishes that his wife still did.  Angela looks at Lester the same way that Carolyn now views Buddy.  After so much neglect, Angela could’ve been any woman of any age and Lester would’ve reacted the same way.  He just wanted to feel alive again through physical human interaction. 

At this point you may be asking, “Tim is there something that you want to tell us?  Why do you understand this so much?”  And the truth is that 12 years ago when I watched this film, I looked at the world from a perspective not so different from Ricky—I was buying time, and was doing what I was told until I could get out on my own—a feeling shared by many-a-teenager.  But nevertheless the motion picture did have an effect on me and ever since I have been trying to see the world as Ricky did.  At times I am so direct with people by telling them exactly how I feel that it makes them uncomfortable.  And like Jane they say, “He’s just so confident.  That can’t be real.”  But I’ve learned that an unabridged level of truth in all of one’s relationships is paramount to maintaining those life-connections. 

No longer a 19-year-old, I am now a man in his 30s with a wife, son, (another child on the way), a mortgage, and more.  So mom, dad, you were right…I am older.  I do understand.  I have now been around enough people in this world to know why this film was, as that stranger put it, “too real.”  But just as the last line of the film says if you have no idea what I’m talking about, “don’t worry…you will someday.”