American Beauty

“... look closer”

Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is a middle-aged advertising executive sinking into his own life, where his wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) measures herself by her lawn and his daughter Jane (Thora Birch) despises him. One day he becomes infatuated with Angela (Mena Suvari), Jane's best friend, and a hunger to escape breaks open in him. Sam Mendes photographs the suburbs as a place of quiet suffocation.