I rented the movie "American Beauty" because I was curious about it since it won all those Oscars.  I thought it was outstanding, though I could see why you didn't like it.  The main character and narrator, father of a teenage girl, was empty and was trying to find fulfillment, initially in all the wrong places.  It was disgusting that he was drooling with improper lust for his daughter's best girlfriend, an immature teenager.  Even so, the fact that this was a very well done (work of art) movie about someone's search for fulfillment made me like it very much in spite of the repulsive parts.  Typically people in real life do look for relief in all the wrong places.  The point is not to stay mired there, but to keep moving beyond those, to keep growing.

The "hero" of American Beauty at first thought that his job, his marriage, his parenthood should fulfill him, and he was thrown into crisis when those proved bumpy and troublesome, seeming more like sources of frustration than fulfillment.  Initially he bitterly resented his wife for not making him whole, BUT he kept growing till he genuinely wished her happiness and also truly wanted happiness for his daughter.  He came to focus on them, their good, instead of what they could do for him.

Part of his growth was an initial regression to the best time in his life --he wanted to go back to being 17, when life was good because he had discovered the pleasure of sex and of acquisition (the car) and was anticipating all of life's promise.  This explains the hamburger flipping job and trading for the vintage red car.  This was just one stop on his voyage of self-discovery.  Another landmark that he was on the right path came when he found his decency --he did not take advantage of his daughter's teenage friend's vulnerability, though he could have.  He wished what was best for her, and forewent the sexual experience that he had initially confused with fulfillment.  His mature decency, treating others as you would wish yourself to be treated, WAS his fulfillment.
 
God was present in the movie's message, poetically woven into the account of why the the boy-next-door's favorite film was a windswept plastic bag.  The boy had encountered God there.  The boy had looked God and mortality in the face and seen Beauty.

The one thing that did not ring true was how could that boy then continue to be a drug pusher?!  Perhaps the filmmaker used the boy's profession to symbolically indicate "altering reality/ bringing relief and beauty", but to do that in a movie about enlightenment is so wrong, mis-focusing on another one of those "looking in the wrong place" mis-steps, thus trivializing life's most important journey.

My conclusion?  Straight out of the first chapter of Romans-- God's calling card, God reaching out to us.  Those two, the father and the boy-next-door, recognized God when they encountered Him.  The father very awkwardly and imperfectly began becoming more like Him, at last discovering his core decency and, as a result, finding peace.  Understanding "American Beauty" for me is the same as your going to USC's Moslem Association meetings:  you have to encounter and understand what you're trying to guide as shepherd.