American Beauty with Social Psychologist and Best-Selling Author Daniel Gilbert

Science on Screen at the Coolidge Corner Theatre explores our search for happiness with a special screening of Sam Mendes's 1999 film American Beauty, paired with a talk by Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard and author of the New York Times best seller Stumbling on Happiness.

Winner of five Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography), American Beauty moves seamlessly from dark, biting comedy to deeply moving drama. Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a middle-aged, middle-class suburbanite trapped in a loveless marriage and dead-end job. Lester’s ambitious realtor wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) and his sullen teenage daughter Jane (Thora Birch) think he is a chronic loser. After Lester becomes infatuated with Jane’s friend Angela (Mena Suvari), a nubile, blonde cheerleader, he awakens to life’s possibilities. No longer willing to play the role of complacent husband and dutiful employee, he rebels with a vengeance. The freer Lester becomes, the happier he seems to be, but his adolescent rebirth only enrages his wife and embarrasses his daughter.

American Beauty is about yearning after youth, respect, connection, power, beauty -- and happiness. But do any of us even know what will make us happy – or, for that matter, unhappy? Guest speaker Daniel Gilbert would bet we think we know, but we are most likely wrong. Apioneer in the field of affective forecasting, Dr. Gilbert has shown, though a series of studies ranging from field to laboratory, that we really aren’t very good at predicting our emotional reactions – positive or negative -- to future events. Join us as Dr. Gilbert explains how and why the limitations of our imaginations may be getting in the way of our search for happiness.