opening two minutes of a feauture film

Characters
Lester (American Beauty)
The lead character of the film, 'American Beauty' is Lester. The movie starts with the main character narrating as he would get up and ready for work. it also spoke of how he would die soon, this gets the audience interested in how and what would happen when he did.  From the opening sequence we can tell that his relationship with his wife and daughter has become very distant and un-passionate, you can tell the un-passionate relationship because he was jerking off in the shower and they never hug or kissed. You can see that the wife is in charge and runs the house, as she unlike her husband is very organized, neat and tidy, which you can tell by looking at the appearance of their house and garden. Lester say's that the highlight of his day was "jerking off in the shower" this suggesting his life is very dull and boring. also that him and his wife are rarely intimate.

Character: Jerry McGuire
In the first few minutes it show's Jerry as being a slick cut business man, who takes business and his career very seriously. He has a slick hair style with his hair gelled back with a slick cut suit on.  From his appearance he seems to be rather wealthy and well-known, he has 72 sporting clients in a huge multi-million maybe billion company. His confidence could be seen as arrogance but he has reason to be over confident when dealing with 72 sporting clients and he receives over 250 phone calls a day. However even though his lifestyle seems to be great, and his career is rocketing, he still seems to be lacking something in life and we witness him looking upset because one of his sporting clients would not sign a card because it was not a certain kind. This suggests Jerry is upset because it seems as so its all about money now and not the sport's.

Comparing both characters, they seem like complete opposites,Both of their lifestyles are very different from each others. Lester who is shy and un-confident and lacks something from life. where as Jerry has a lot of confidence and seems successful in his job but we are not to sure about his love life. However both seem to be unsatisfied from life, and appear to be unhappy.

Ken 
The landlord of 'The Grapes'. From the opening ken is singing a jolly song, even when he is cleaning the bathroom. Ken is then seen refilling an expensive brandy with a cheaper version, this suggesting he is a cheap man. He seems a very jolly man and enjoys his profession. As a character ken seems to be a perfect British landlord.