Wife and Daughter

Carolyn, Lester’s wife, on the other hand, is a driven real estate agent.  She works hard to make her homes appealing to customers, however fails to actually sell them.  Unlike Lester, she tries to make the best of her situations.  Her motivations are money and fame, and the important things in her life are materialistic.  Lester and Carolyn's relationship is pretty much over. They do not love each other, they do not get along, and ultimately they do not interact with one another.  However, Lester does not leave/divorce her until he catches her cheating on him with a powerful local Realtor.  Lester's decision to finally leave her makes him happy.  At the very end of the film, Mr. Fitz asks Lester, "Your wife is with another man, and you don't care?"and Lester replies saying no with a grin on his face.

Lester's daughter, Jane, is a quiet girl with only one friend, Angela, who is perfect and all the guys want.  Jane is the ugly friend who lacks a true role model and despises her parents. The first dinner scene is a good example of the father - daughter relationship of Lester and Jane: Lester tries having a conversation with his daughter, but she shuts him down, saying he hasn’t talked to her in months and she walks away.  Lester follows her and instead of apologizing, he insists that it is her fault for not coming to talk to him.  Negligent of his choices made to not spend time with his daughter, Lester blames her for why they do not speak.  Both are difficult, but Lester has dismissed his daughter for so long that she no longer cares to speak to him.  This scene shows one aspect of Lester's life that lacks importance.  He does not care how his daughter is doing throughout the whole movie until right before his death.  Finally, Lester asks Angela, "how is my daughter doing?" which shows he finally cares. 

When it comes to family, Lester's decisions cause him to be miserable. He does not take responsibility in his actions, which ultimately push his wife to cheat on him and his daughter to abandon him.  It isn't until the very end that Lester takes responsibility and makes a few differnt decisions, like not sleeping with his daughters friend, Angela, that brings him out of his depression.  At the end of the film, Lester's choices allow him to finally see the beauty in his meaningless life once again.