American Beauty 1999

American Beauty

Released: 1999

Storyline: 

Lester Burnham is a middle-aged magazine executive who despises his job and is unhappily married to Carolyn, a neurotic and ambitious real estate broker. Their 16-year-old daughter, Jane, abhors her parents and is a cheerleader despite low self esteem. The Burnhams' new neighbors are retired US Marine colonel Frank Fitts, his near-catatonic wife, Barbara, and their teenage son, Ricky, who obsessively films his surroundings with a camcorder, collecting hundreds of recordings on video tapes in his bedroom, while using his part-time catering jobs to serve as a front for dealing cannabis. Frank is a strict disciplinarian who has previously forced Ricky into a military academy and briefly committed him to a psychiatric hospital. Gay couple and business partners Jim Olmeyer and Jim Berkley, also next-door neighbors to the Burnhams, welcome the Fitts to the neighborhood; Frank later reveals his animus towards homosexuality when angrily discussing the encounter with Ricky.