 According to the reviewer, which motif seems to represent the precariousness of reality?
A Good Year for the Roses? Early in American Beauty , Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a weary reporter for a media magazine, masturbates in the shower while informing us in voice-over that we're witnessing the highlight of his day. He peers through tired eyes out the window at his manicured suburban tract-house lawn, where his wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening)--whose gardening clogs, he points out, are color-coordinated with the handles of her shears--snips roses (American beauties) and twitters about Miracle-Gro to a gay yuppie (Scott Bakula) on the other side of a white picket fence. "I have lost something," says Lester. "I'm not exactly sure what it is but I know I didn't always feel this ... sedated." Apparently, Lester doesn't realize that snipped roses are garden-variety symbols of castration, or he'd know what he has lost. But the makers of American Beauty are about to give Lester his roses back. At a high-school basketball game, Lester is transfixed by a blonde cheerleader named Angela (Mena Suvari), who is twirling alongside his daughter, Jane (Thora Burch).
 The grainy texture of Ricky's camera film
 The rose petals in Angela's bathtub  The undulating plastic bag  The grainy texture of Ricky's camera film  The raindrops falling on top of the Colonel