As we've already discussed elsewhere in this guide, it's more than a little squirm-inducing that our protagonist's big heroic journey is sparked by his pervy obsession with a teenager (and his daughter's friend to boot).

The movie asks us to get invested in that journey and cheer for his attempt to get some fun and passion back in his life, but the ick factor places a huge roadblock in our way. Seriously, you're asking us to cheer for a guy whose big plan for most of the movie is to successfully commit statutory rape? Come on, Sam Mendes and Alan Ball.

But not so fast—you have to pay attention to what happens at the end of the movie. As we've already discussed in her "Cast" page, Angela the girl is not what she seems at first, and her role in the film isn't either. She talks some big talk about all the guys she's had sex with and how gorgeous she believes she is, but we discover at the end of the film that she's actually a virgin and all that talk was just bluster and insecurity:

ANGELA: I still want to do it. I just thought I should tell you, in case you wondered why I wasn't… better.

Angela's confession to Lester on that front seems to wake him up to the fact that the woman he's actually been pursuing doesn't exist. The fantasy of Angela certainly inspired him to wake up and live his life, and symbolized the kind of passion that could be his… but he realizes that Angela isn't an appropriate object for his attentions/desires/passion.

In short, he realizes that Angela was a symbol of what he wanted.

Yes, it's still gross that Lester needed a fantasy of a teenaged girl to change his life (and that he was still totally on board with the statutory rape thing until he found out she was a virgin), but at least he finally realized that Angela was really a just symbol for him (and that he should stop trying to sleep with her).