True or False? - Looking Closer at American Beauty - Written by Elmar Pütz

6. Conclusion
It took me some time to take a look (not even a close one) at American Beauty because I had been fooled by the cover and the title, which I considered uninspiring and boring. It was until this seminar that I watched it for the first time. Before the seminar somehow made me watch it I had never felt the urge to spend time with the film (I had rather worked on Forrest Gump). What a fool I was this film is not anything but mind-blowing. There is excellent camera work, a wide variety of characters, a story full of twists and turns, several themes, and a lot of good actors. Especially the characters grabbed my attention. The way they constantly develop throughout the film and the fact that you can almost every time you watch the film or read the screenplay learn something new about them is just fascinating. At first glance they appear to be stereotypes and of no impor-tance but eventually you will catch yourself feeling sympathy or pity for them and their destinies. Sometimes I even was jealous of Lester and that he had the courage to do what he did. Of course it is just a film and the events depicted a far from normal but it does not mean that it is unreal. It is extreme without a doubt but parts of it seem so fa-miliar and inspiring. It is hard to tell whether it is a funny tragedy or a moving comedy - it is just great. I know that there are people out there whose opinion deviates from mine but that is just the nature of the film either you love or you hate it, there simply can not be a compromise.
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