That's what I thought when I first saw this even though it was three years after AB.
1. Gay/Not Gay/Well Maybe Gay/No Not Really Gay son - check
2. Crazy neurotic mother - check
3. Father that dies at the end but lives a free life so it's ok
4. Slutty neigboor girl.
I know there's more.
I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy.
This was a far superior film to american beauty. And you left out the may december romance of the parent and the childs friend
shareI agree in that I thought when I first saw it, I thought it was a rip on American Beauty. There was just too many co-incidences, too many plot moments in American Beauty, where Life As a House went down the path not chosen in AB.
The protagonist already knowing he was dying, the teenage boy actually plying sex trade, the wife who had fallen out of love falling back in love.
It was like the writers wanted to recreate the magic of American Beauty and thought What if this, what if that?
However, I have watched this movies a few times since then, and I actually enjoy it. It is an emotional ride, that sucks you in as a viewer.
Similarly, I feel the same way about The Town and it's predecessor Heat. First time I saw it, I thought it was blatant copying, but over time, I have come to enjoy it in itself.
It was never even implied or suggested that Sam was gay. He did what he did for money and it messed him up. That in itself would prove that he wasn't ever gay.
shareIt's nothing like American Beauty outside of some similarities with some characters (which hardly A.B. were the first to come up with).
Also A.B. was a dark comedy where as L.A.A.H. is a Lasse Hallström type of feel-good dramedy
A good father and a good outlaw can't settle inside the same man.