As Birch and Bentley prepare to skip town, all the tensions that had been building up over the course of the movie come to a head. Lester is finally in a position to announce his lust for his teenage dream. Throughout the film, the Suvari character had touted her sexual agency, openly declaring details of her sex life to slightly startled peers. She reveals to Lester that her confidence was all a front, and that she is, indeed, a young person, beholden to the pressures given her by the gaze of men like him. She is young enough to be his daughter. Lester immediately regrets his decisions.
Meanwhile, Lester’s stern neighbor — the father of the Bentley character, played by Chris Cooper — had misread certain conversations he and Lester had earlier in the film, taking them to mean that Lester was coming out as queer and that Cooper, too, should do the same. When Cooper does, it ignites his already hotly burning hate and inspires him to return to Lester with a gun. Lester’s final narration is from the afterlife. It’s Annette Bening who seems to get the short end of the stick. She had found her own catharsis earlier by having an affair with Peter Gallagher. After finding Lester dead, she wails in grief. It’s her last moment in the movie. It might have been nice to see an extra moment of reflection from her.
And that’s where “American Beauty” leaves us. Suburbia allows hatred to pullulate, success is a trap, everyone is full of deep dissatisfaction, and for some, death is the only way out.
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