Good American Dream Essay Example

«Avalon» is a movie by writer-director Barry Levinson that is basically about implementation American Dream in life. It is a bittersweet story about Polish-Jewish family of two brothers: Sam Krichinsky and his brother Gabe; who immigrated to United States of America in 1914 pursuing the american dream and having intent to settle.
The story starts with a soul touching but very easy and strict line «I came to America in 1914..». This is how the main character starts his story. And the very touching thing about this start is the end of the film when this story is repeated to family’s new generation. This quote can easily burst anyone into tears: «He came to America in 1914»
I think that the most appropriate understanding of American dream according to this film was given by James Truslow Adams in 1931 who wrote that: «life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.»
Sam Krichinsky’s family is a great example to understand that completing American dream requires full assimilation into American society that as described in the «Avalon» can be pretty hard. In his movie Levinson puts emphasis on the problems the immigrant family has to cope with, the biggest issue is the difference in culture, traditions and also different attitude . Even though the family presented in the movie did well with finding solution to all the problems, we can clearly see that every single immigrant family will have to face difficulties to achieve American dream.
The main idea of the film is to show that pursuing American dream can be all that hard as it is shown in the movie, the dream can become a quest that has to be completed. In the aftermath, there is a question that arrises: is American dream worth trying? And it is up to everyone to decide what their answer for this question is going to be.