 According to the reviewer, the films "American Beauty" and "For the Love of the Game" share all of the following in common EXCEPT:
Apparently, Lester doesn't realize that snipped roses are garden-variety symbols of castration, or he'd know what he has lost. The movie is convinced, too--which is odd, since the fantasy of an underage cheerleader making a middle-aged man's wilted roses bloom is a tad ... primitive. More important, it has a vein of metaphysical yearning, which the director, Sam Mendes, mines brilliantly. 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.
 A successful portrayal of New Age Nihilism
 The first names of the protagonists  Protagonists who glorify masculinity  A successful portrayal of New Age Nihilism  The first names of the directors