American Beauty Movie Review Paper Example

American Beauty movie is entertaining and full of humor. The film brings the aspect of sadness and seclusion from the loved ones. It shows how societal activities shapes the behavior of an individual. Lester Burnham, one of the main characters in the movie, experiences loneliness and isolation from his daughter and wife. In the workplace, his colleagues see him as a loser, and he is almost losing his job. These situations lower his self-esteem and feel very unproductive and frustrated. Burnham wants to associate himself with youths, therefore, engage in smoking weed with the adolescences to seek attention and to fit in their group. Burnham search for care and love from the teens after being rejected by his family and the society around him contributed much to his bad behavior. At the end of the movie, Burnham changes his smoking behavior and become productive to get the happiness and contentment.

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Erik Erikson psychosocial theory occurs in eight different stages whereby these stages determine human personality. Individual encounters psychological and social needs affecting personality development positively or negatively. Achievement of the past stage result in ethical behavior, but the failure of the earlier stage slow accomplishment of the next step or cause bad behavior. In American beauty movie, Lester Burnham is in the middle of his adulthood, a scene when people are engaged and resourceful to work and families. The success of this stage is achieved through care for others and the creation of something promoting the society.

Burnham experiences conflict with his wife and daughter weakening their relationship. He lacks commitment, care, involvement and love of his family leading to loneliness and stress. The situation from the previous stage affected his generativity to the family and even in the workplace causing stagnation in the intimacy verses isolation stage. Erikson explains that people with poor sense of belonging have less dedicated connections resulting in separation, seclusion and hopelessness. Burnham suffers from these problems because he lacks personal identity and appears not to care about his interactions. According to Erikson, it is the stage where people develop their professions and family, and if these skills are not attained, an individual becomes unproductive and inactive in the society. In this case of Burnham, he behaves like a teen fixed in an adult life which is very frustrating. The crisis occurs when the person's mind struggle with the inner self. Middle adulthood comes with difficulties and problems.

Psychosocial theory of development explains that development is a continuous process encouraging people to view the future as a chance for positive change and growth rather than regretting of the past behavior. Individuals facing these trials and problems find solutions through the same problems. However, it does not mean that they will not improve from the previous bad practices. Understanding oneself is the best method to recover from the past experiences and contribute to personal development. Erikson explains the importance of creating healthy relationships and especially how adults can assist children to grow into better adults in the future. Erikson was strict on how children and adolescents are brought up to mature people in his theory.

Interpersonal conflict is evident in American beauty movie between Burnham, his wife Carolyn and his daughter as they refer to him as a great loser. The later has an internal struggle because he cannot fix his relationship with his wife because they both lack a sense of belonging. The conflicts existing in his life weaken his relationship with his family causing frustrations and seclusion. Burnham experiences fight with the society resulting in his resignation from work and rejecting the society values. He starts smoking weed and flirting with a teenager who is morally wrong as per society norms. Marriage failure between the husband and wife is evident. It increases understanding of the idea of what we see and reality concerning our daily lives. Burnham family has a complicated means of communication, and he did not communicate about his resignation from work to the wife, while the wife had an affair.

Conflict help to reduce pressure between members and give the chance to solve the issues without compromising their interest hence improving their connections. The failure of Burnham and his wife to solve their problems caused the fight between the father and his daughter. To solve this problem, the parent should forget about their differences and focus on the child who feels neglected. Parents should concentrate on child interest, support, and guide and respect their decision instead of criticizing them. Parents should understand the crisis in adolescence stage of the development to guide them while making decisions in their lives. They should find better ways to solve their differences as they are role models to the children and develop specific communication methods to prevent causing more problems.

Conclusion

Burnham daughter who is a teen is in identity versus confusion stage of psychosocial development. She lacks support and encouragement from both parents, and this will interfere with her self-identification. She might not be able to conform to the values and beliefs in the society due to fewer interactions with the people around her. This will cause confusion and insecurity about herself in the future. The wife feels lonely and isolated due to a weak relationship between the husband and the daughter. This might affect her next stages as she has a soft commitment to family members and has no time for her child and will not have accomplished her roles as a parent.