Overall Rating
  Awesome: 74.18%
Worth A Look: 13.73%
Average: 4.18%
Pretty Bad: 4.48%
Total Crap: 3.43%
30 reviews, 490 user ratings
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| American Beauty |
by Greg Muskewitz
"A real “Beauty.”"
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“Look closer…”; it’s a bumper sticker hanging on the wall of Lester Burnham’s (Kevin Spacey) cubicle, as well as American Beauty’s tag line. And what exactly does that mean? Well it’s certainly open to interpretation.Lester leads an ordinary suburban life with his real estate dealing wife (Annette Bening) and their high school-aged daughter Jane (Thora Birch). The marriage is a dead one — the only reason they’re still together is because they’ve done it so long, it’s no more than habit. At 42, Lester is fed up with his job at a magazine where he’s slaved away the last 14 years. His family thinks he’s a loser, and he even admits it to himself. Jane has apparently grown apart from her father before the film starts; she resents him and wishes she had a good role model for a father, one who would display structure and discipline. Jane describes her father as a “horny geek-boy who squirts his shorts every time she brings one of her girlfriends home.” And that’s exactly what he does when he goes to Jane’s cheer performance and sees Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari). That leads to his constant fantasizing and lust for Angela, which is acknowledged by both Jane (who thinks it’s gross) and Angela (who thinks it’s sweet and that he is sexy).
Around the same time, the Burnhams get new neighbors: Ricky (Wes Bentley), an odd boy of similar age to Jane who carries around a hand-sized camcorder and records odd things; his father, a homophobic, strict ex-Marine Corps col. (Chris Cooper); and the Stepford-esque wife (Allison Janney). Ricky begins taping Jane, at first without her knowledge, and then against her wishes. His excuse is that he’s curious. At first she hides it, but eventually Jane expresses her approval/satisfaction of his curiosity, and the two find love in each other. She dislikes the way she looks (she want a breast augmentation when she clearly does not need it), but he has seen a life behind things which has caused him never to be afraid. Together, in a group of largely dysfunctional people, they are the only two who have found true happiness.
From the opening narrative by Spacey, we know he is killed, but the events leading to his comeuppance are re-told in the form of a harsh but hilarious black comedy, mixed with some stirring and unsettling drama. (The unflinching film buff would recognize the set up from Sunset Boulevard.) The film’s main theme of being ordinary was an extremely well thought out thesis, clearly displayed on screen. What may seem ordinary to one person may be the most beautiful and extravagant thing to the rest; ergo, there is no set ordinary. From the outside, the Burnham family may seem average enough, but when you “look closer,” is there really an “average” to compare it to?
Juices were flowing throughout the film, pumping harder than blood in these characters’ veins. First-time director Sam Mendes not only got the most out of first-time writer Alan Ball’s script, but he does the same for getting the most out of his actors. His firm grasp of the material provides plentiful motivation for each actor, thus making it one of the most fully realized films of the year. (It actually expands beyond any predicted potential.) With the exception of Bentley’s character and the realizations that Spacey’s receive, all the other characters are unhappy about something in their life, whether it’s about looks, love, fear of the unknown, or just plain fear of being “ordinary” (none of us would know that feeling, right?). Assumptions are constant, and in this case, many are crucial to the characters’ development. None of them seemed to learn that just because something appears one way, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is.
Annette Bening’s character is too far out of the game (she hits and yells and talks to herself) to learn from Spacey’s failed instruction, as he tries to instill in her the difference between “what we have in our lives versus what we make of our lives.” Bening is outstanding and very eccentric. Lester doesn’t necessarily come down with the wisest of epiphanies, but his eyes are opened wide enough that he knows what’s been missing. And in most cases he tries to fix the situation even though it may not have been the smartest of choices. Spacey is transfixing, and also very funny! He may find himself with another Oscar. Thora Birch’s bravado performance is compelling and eloquent; she isn’t your everyday teenage actress. Birch approaches her role with vehemence — she starts off very quietly as her raging emotions continue to escalate. She achieves a brilliant and subdued, but uneasy performance, through a sense of urgent melancholia — and there’s always a thick tension in the air. Mena Suvari is salaciously sexy, and very seductive. She, too, opens her character up very well on screen. Wes Bentley starts off a little stiff, but he eventually loosens up in front of the camera and consistently holds an aura of brevity around him. The film really knows how to evoke your emotions, whatever their demand is.
Call American Beauty a mix between The Ice Storm and Happiness, but the dysfunction portrayed on screen is lightened by the dark humor. Sometimes you might feel like you shouldn’t be laughing, but you can’t help it. The knowledge that your own problems are (hopefully) far less in size and consequence should be comforting, so being able to laugh at these fictional characters’ problems feels good. The Oscar race is on, and American Beauty just may be the year’s best picture.[Masterpiece.]
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1852&reviewer=172
originally posted: 11/07/99 09:12:40
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USA
15-Sep-1999 (R)
UK
N/A
Australia
26-Jan-2000 (MA)
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