 How does the author feel about the characters in American Beauty?
Apparently, Lester doesn't realize that snipped roses are garden-variety symbols of castration, or he'd know what he has lost. A hotshot English theater director (his Cabaret revival is still on the boards in New York), Mendes gives the film a patina of New Age lyricism and layer upon layer of visual irony. A merican Beauty is so wittily written and gorgeously directed that you might think you're seeing something archetypal--maybe even the Great American Movie.
 They are stereotypically caricatured.
 They are stale.  They are melodramatic.  They are stereotypically caricatured.  They are fresh.