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Unfortunately, American Beauty does not consistently match the success of this strand of its plot. The other adult characters, far from being original portraits drawn from contemporary life, are actually based on well-known stereotypes, which can be located historically with some precision and thus give the film a pastiche quality that coexists uneasily with its aspirations toward realist expose. For example, Annette Bening's character (Lester's wife) is a familiar--but not necessarily welcome--figure out of the cultural criticism of the immediate postwar era. The historical origins of this character are even signaled within the film itself by her preference for Eisenhower-era show tunes and popular music--just the sort of taste to which a shallow woman of her generation would tend to feel superior because it belongs to the world of her parents (some of the more anodyne specimens of classic rock or contemporary radio pop would be more likely choices from the point of view of social documentation).
Approximate Word count = 413
Approximate Pages = 1.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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