 According to the reviewer, which motif seems to represent the precariousness of reality?
More important, it has a vein of metaphysical yearning, which the director, Sam Mendes, mines brilliantly. Mendes can distend the real into the surreal with imperceptible puffs. 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. It's amazing that Mendes and Ball get away with recycling so many stale and reactionary ideas under the all-purpose rubric of "black comedy." Several months ago, Daniel Menaker in Slate in contemporary film in which the protagonist attempts to break through our cultural and technological anesthetization into "the real." That's the theme here, too, and it's extraordinarily potent, at times even heartbreaking.
 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