Shirley Valentine

... Shirley Valentine It is a fairly common prediction that everyone in our society goes through what is called a "midlife crises". A time of re-evaluation of the life one has led and a rebellion or abrupt change in life. To compensate for the banality of one's existence one takes a divergent step out of their paradigm and try something new in order to recapture their fleeting youth. We have been given two versions of this idea from a male and female perspective in two different movies. "American Beauty" focuses on a male character to address his midlife crises while "Shirley Valentine" focuses on a female character to address her midlife crises. Though they both address the same theme or idea it is attempted in very different ways. "American Beauty" is a socially conscious drama that hopes to sober us from meaningless materialism and to tap us back into the small

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