Revealing mistake: In the scene when Ricky's father rushes to his room and punches him, Ricky is bleeding before he is hit. (01:08:00)
American Beauty (1999)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: Sam Mendes
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Chris Cooper, Mena Suvari, Thora Birch
Genres: Drama
Col. Frank Fitts spies on Ricky next door with Lester. Ricky rolls a joint while Lester lays back in a chair, but from Frank's point of view, he looks like he is giving Lester a blowjob. When Ricky returns he has an argument with Frank and then leaves. He runs next door to ask Jane to run away with him. Frank goes next door and finds Lester exercising in the garage, he starts crying and kisses Lester, when Lester realises what he is, he tells him that he has the wrong idea. Jane has an argument with Angela, who later gets comforted by Lester. They get more intimate but Angela confesses that she is a virgin, and Lester decides not to have sex with her. Lester looks at an old photo of his family, and smiles. He is then suddenly shot in the head. As a monologue from Lester plays, every character who could've shot him, appeared to be somewhere else when the gunshot was heard. The evidence leads to Frank Fitts who was obviously upset, had blood on his shirt, and was missing a gun from his rack of guns. Lester remembers back to all his favourite moments and quotes, "I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world."
Matt Barnes
Trivia: Jessica Biel was originally cast as Jane Burnham but had to drop out due to conflicts with "7th Heaven" producer Aaron Spelling. The part then went to Thora Birch.
Question: Did Ricky have a mental disability? He is pretty strange, and it was mentioned that he was in a mental hospital, I thought maybe he had aspergers or autism.
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Answer: There's no mention that he had a mental disorder. He likely suffers from the emotional abuse his father inflicted on him throughout his entire childhood, which included sending Ricky to a military academy and forcibly committing him to a psychiatric facility (for unknown reasons). This probably contributed to Ricky's later eccentric behavior and drug use.
raywest ★