Suprised by Grace: An American Beauty

In the 1999 classic American Beauty Kevin Spacey gives an astonishing performance as Lester, a no-life conformist suburbanite who breaks free from stale job and sterile marriage to embark on a journey of liberation by buying a hot rod, surrendering to his lustful fantasy about his daugher's sexy cheerleader friend, working out, smoking very good pot, venting his anger at his wife (a hilarious, delightful Annete Bening) and fleeing to a job with very, very low responsibility (flipping burgers at a fast food place.) His is the quintessential male midlife crisis. A psychologist would call this regression. His path would warm the hearts of Marcuse, Reich, Kinsey, Mead and all the geniuses of perversion who inspired the Cultural Revolution that transformed our society in the decades leading to this movie. Common sense (that has become uncommon since the 1960s) would see that this is a path to futility and despair. But the movie has a delightful, supernatural surprise in store! The story is narrated by the voice of the now deceased Lester in a tone of deep appreciation and peace from a heavenly, but not stereotypicaly  pious perspective. The object of his lust is an arrogant, aggressive, and seductive young blonde. The plot builds to the climax: he finally "gets" her as she surrenders herself. As he unbuttons her blouse, something deeper is unveiled. Timidly, fearfully she says: "This is my first time. I am sorry I am not better at this!"  Her facade has disappeared and she shows her real, vulnerable self.  Lester smiles lovingly, paternally. He reaches for a shirt and covers her protectively. He embraces her tenderly, chastely. In an instant they are both transformed...A Miracle! Through no merit or effort of his own, Lester is granted a revelation, a manifestation...of  the truer, deeper beauty, indeed the splendor, of this precious, fragile, misguided young woman. And this awakens within him, at last, his own greatness as a man, his paternity, his true virility. Lester's narrative is illuminated by that of his mentor: his daughter's adolescent boyfriend who is at the same time a drug user and dealer and a genius and mystic who may be mentally unstable. He explains that he had heard a heavenly voice assure him that "there is nothing to fear, ever!" and he had come to experience the heart-piercing Beauty that surrounds and permeates everything. Through the influence of his deviant saintly mentor and the self-disclosure of his Beloved, Lester is drawn into the Kingdom of Delight and Goodness! This movie is especially refreshing for a believer in that it entirely transcends moralism:  not only is Lester not trying to be good, but he is trying to be bad. But where sin abounds, so much more does grace! Something mysterious, efficacious, transcendent intervenes to bring him Joy and make him good. Balthasar would approve: it is Beauty that finally triumphs, not our own feeble efforts at virtue or vice...in a Drama of sheer Splendor! We see that his ridiculous, embarassing erotic fascination and her manipulative seductiveness were both mysteriously anticipatory of a heavenly Encounter, a genuine Event of piercing Loveliness!