Who do you dislike the most?
Who is, in your opinion, the most despicable character in this movie and why?
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MovieChat Forums > American Beauty (1999) Discussion > Who do you dislike the most?
Well there is only one. Barry Del Sherman as Brad. He has no empathy for Lester or any of the other employees. All the rest of the characters are flawed, except Jim and Jim, but they are not despicable.
..*.. TxMike ..*..
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Well there is only one. Barry Del Sherman as Brad.
Correct. All the others are victims of consumer capitalism. Brad is not portrayed as a rounded character, just a cardboard cut-out to represent the abusive system. The American religion is money and (largely trashy or unnecessary) material possessions. Capitalism uses politicians and advertisers to brain-wash the American people into accepting this and to dehumanize them. (It is symbolic that Lester works in advertising. He is just another pawn helping to do his masters' dirty work.) Americans are fast losing their souls. That is why Lester says that he is "already dead".
Of course this is true throughout the First World, but the cancer originated in the US and is at its most advanced (perhaps terminal) stage there.
Ricky Fitts.
What I dislike about him is that he calls Angela boring / ordinary.
He falls in to the trap, loved by insecure men, of thinking that if someone is attractive and alternately flirtatious and cutting, that they are shallow.
'Look Closer' is the tagline of the movie. There's a poster saying it in Lester Burnham's workplace too.
Ricky Fitts didn't look closer at Angela.
Maybe the fault is the casting, I don't know. But Mena Suvari is too interesting an actress for a character she plays to deserve Fitts' assessment.
It's a shame that Fitts' resorts to this comic book logic about Angela. It's a shame because the way that the film is made suggests to me that we're supposed to cheer Fitts' assessment.
Fitts is kind of interesting. I mean, he films plastic bags, he wells up, he looks a bit gothic. I understand why Jane was drawn to him. But isn't he just a dark Forrest Gump really- a plastic bag instead of a feather on the wind.
I hope that we are invited to think that Fitts is wrong about Angela, that inside Fitts is really someone who fears Angela's sense of freedom to say what she feels rather than to have to voyeuristically achieve it.
What I dislike about him is that he calls Angela boring / ordinary.
He falls in to the trap, loved by insecure men, of thinking that if someone is attractive and alternately flirtatious and cutting, that they are shallow.
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She IS ordinary because she spends her life in denial of being so and at 18 is over the hill as far as ever getting laid as she scares off all males her own sort of age by her attitude.
Her only chance of happiness was Lester but fag killed him - it's just the Beauty
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Ricky Fitts. I would love this movie if it wasn't for him. His face is very punch-able. He sounds like he is completely full of bulls*t. He cries over a piece of garbage.
His presence is so irritating.
I find all of the other other character amusing.
Well, the thing that I find really special about this movie is that all of the characters are both likable and hateable. At first, Ricky seemed to be the most annoying character, but there were some sides to him that I kind of liked. Then, the marine seems to be a really awful person, but then we see his motives and can't help but feel at least a little sympathy. You even get to see Mrs. Burnham's sympathetic side in an early scene where she's crying about her somewhat unsuccessful job life.
The character I liked most was probably Kevin Spacey. Although he does ("feels" is more like it) one pretty bad thing in the film, it's not like he's the psychiatrist in "Happiness" or anything, for the most part he's a very funny and smart guy.
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None.
shareThe mom. She was the most vapid shallow witch I'd ever seen. Constantly complaining about everything! This is shy men cheat.
shareRespectfully disagree with TxMike here. I don't think the film tries to suggest a difference between people whose actions have reason and don't have reason - Brad is simply underwritten, because we have enough characters by this point. Rather, the film is realistic because it treats everyone as despicable, which is not to say that any one person is lacking good reason to be despicable.
As for who I was least empathetic towards, it started out as Carolyn, but we got treated to her rationale for why she is the way she is later on. Going to say it's the colonel. He ruined the most lives of all because he was too pigheaded to work out his own issues.