American Beauty

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American Beauty

90% Liked It
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American Beauty

Allison Janney, Amber Smith, Annette Bening, Ara Celi, Chris Cooper, John Cho, Kevin Spacey, Matthew Kimbrough, Mena Suvari, Peter Gallagher, Sam Robards, Scott Bakula, Sue Casey, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley

A biting, penetrating and often humorous take on contemporary life in suburban America, Lester Burnham becomes intrigued by a young girl named Angela, and this fascination sparks him to make some majo...( read more  read more... )r changes in his life. He relishes these changes, much to the exasperation of his wife Carolyn.

Id: 10900555

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American Beauty Recent Reviews
  • smith44
    December 4, 2009
    smith44
    RICKY FITTS (Wes Bentley): "Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."
  • SilentScreamer
    October 24, 2009
    SilentScreamer
    Honestly didnt care for it. It was weird and dark and twisted. not my cup of tea.
  • FangsFirst
    October 12, 2009
    FangsFirst
    I've seen seven Best Picture winners in theatres before they actually won, but this is the one that was at a point where I was starting pay attention to movies yet still didn't care, worry or know enough about the politics of them to wonder or debate whether they might become Bes...( read more)t Picture winners. I just thought it was a movie and my family was going to see it, and I knew my artsier friends were enjoying it, but that was about all. My sister was a big fan of Kevin Spacey, for his earlier work. Like many, it sort of curbed her interest a bit by placing him in a starring role. That never particularly bothered me, never felt he was overexposed, but occasionally thought he might be doing a bit like De Niro and taking on some less than necessary (or even uninteresting) films after this. One wonders why actors seem to do this AFTER big works--shouldn't they have just gotten some bills paid? Still, that's a sidenote to the film itself.

    The Burnhams are a pretty strictly familiar suburban upper-middle class (maybe upper-upper) family, Lester (Spacey) entering a mid-life crisis, Carolyn (Annette Bening) failing to cope with this or her own crisis, and mildly rebellious daughter Jane (Thora Birch) revelling in the role of 'outsider' in school, while hoping just a bit to find some companionship outside of it, or even within it. Her closest friend is, somewhat mysteriously, the promiscuous fellow cheerleader Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari). Moving in next door are the Fitts, Colonel Frank, USMC (Chris Cooper), Barbara (Allison Janey) and Ricky (Wes Bentley). Jane's first run-in is with Ricky, who she finds videotaping her form his porch, openly, shamelessly, but without any note of threat. Ricky himself is estranged from his family, his mother lost in her own mind and his father fighting to control his son, who has been involved in drugs and, his father suspects anyway, homosexuality. Lester tries to burn through his own life, his worthless job and his failed marriage, while trying to engage in the fantasy of seducing his daughter's friend Angela. Carolyn attempts to escape by bonding with her real estate competitor Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher). Jane attempts to deal with her collapsing parents while being drawn to the danger and mystery of Ricky.

    There's a note, as many films suffer after receiving acclaim, of sour grapes from many people regarding this film--or at least a feeling of contrarian opposition to its acclaim and awards. "Overrated" is thrown at it pretty regularly, with a sneer and typically an accompanying sense of accomplished superiority. Of course, one cannot become superior by anything simply by saying it isn't as good as OTHER people think, or simply that it "sucks." Interestingly the film this reminds me of most (albeit backward considering the timeline along which I saw them) is Ordinary People, which is amusingly appropriate both because it is reviled as winner of the Best Picture Oscar in 1980 (mostly because it beat out Raging Bull) and because apparently American Beauty's first-time director Sam Mendes looked back at that very film for inspiration. Both deal with a level of socioeconomic living that many of us do not experience--somewhat above our own without falling into the absurdly incomprehensible fantasy of the ultra-rich--and the problems that plague the people in it, which differ somewhat little from those the rest of us know.

    Once, while watching Donnie Darko, I experienced a rather common reaction to films like this: "But they have money, they can't have problems!" someone exclaimed at that one. I was struck by the absolute absurdity of this idea, but was left pondering the difference. Certainly if we start looking comparatively, any of us (especially anyone who can read a movie review posted only on the internet, or able to read one at all for that matter) can find someone in a worse position than ourselves. Problems are not intrinsically valued or valueless, as dealing with them on a universal scale is inherently absurd. There's no way to suggest that Lester's dissatisfaction with the dishonest approach of everyone in his life is unimportant, because it is important to Lester. Few--if any--can will away problems that are emotionally affecting, and so they become important at least in the context of the person having them and those around him or her. There's a smart approach to this in American Beauty, as there is in the entirety of Alan Ball's approach to the script: characters are all born from existing stereotypes, but all twist and contort them without being flagrant contradictions or sardonic inversions. A dis-satisfied suburban father in a useless job becomes a man seeking youth earnestly and in unusual ways, some expected, some not, and finding it in a place he, himself, would never have suspected. A shrew-like mother who holds her problems over her family but secretly holds this shield of frustration over deep insecurities and depression, who is trying to re-assemble her life and reclaim her role as mother but simply doesn't understand it because she has no concept of herself. An outsider daughter who fits naturally into the role of cheerleader--somehow!--and yet lacks promiscuity, all while secretly planning breast augmentation to attract more male attention, and boost her own self esteem.

    The film is not an amazing revelation in thematic terms, though it does have an appropriately post-modern outlook on these same themes and ideas. It has a hint of the dark and a twist of the sarcastic without being overly "hip" or pretentious (though those who are happily embraced it on release). Mendes' direction and the fantasies hiding in the film, specifically Lester's fantasies about Angela, are fascinatingly creative, neither arthouse abstraction nor clumsily obvious symbolism. Thomas Newman's accompanying score for these scenes is fantastically mischievous, recognizing the problematic nature of them, but reminding the audience that this is only fantasy--though not some members, who still oversimplify the film to decry it as being about a "sick, deranged pedophile." His score is hauntingly bittersweet, plucking the right aching heartstrings when witnessing things from the outside, as Ricky often does through the lens of his camera when watching his neighbors interact. The moment where he tapes a silent conversation between Lester and Jane through their kitchen window to only Newman's sweet, sad music captures perfectly the dichotomy between the intense emotional response of the Burnhams themselves and the invisibility of those problems to anyone from the outside who isn't paying attention as most don't.

    This is not an overrated film, really. Those who suggest as much either have very specific tastes (which is fine!) or are simply trying to prove their worth by degrading something recognized somewhat widely as being a quality release (which is not so fine). Alan Ball easily proved this was no fluke by going on to make Six Feet Under, while Mendes went on to direct solidly visual and engaging films like Jarhead.
  • SirPant
    September 25, 2009
    SirPant
    Very overrated and quite insulting really. The scene with the plastic bag floating in the wind for ages was arrogant and stupid.
  • Galeocerdo
    August 15, 2009
    Galeocerdo
    The film is a modern classic that reflects American society, all the hypocrisy and contradictions of its values and the people whose lives they define, and the struggle of truth and life and art to be free of them. Great performances, visual motifs and a haunting score give the f...( read more)ilm a unique aesthetic well-suited to its melancholy story, but the film suffuses its potentially heady melodrama with an unusual comic liveliness that keeps it from being morbid or inert. The cumulative effect is pleasant and somewhat haunting, and the subtext goes deep.
  • rayld02
    December 5, 2009
    rayld02
    Kevin Spacey in his most promising role. He played the role of a 42 year old American dad who in some ways was a bit whimsical and imaginative. American Beauty gave him an Oscar for Best Actor in Leading Role. This is one of the BETTER films I saw.

    Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) ...( read more)was an "as good as he gets" kind of family guy. He worked for an advertising company and earned good income. But he did not have a good relationship with everyone, especially his family. Lester had a wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) and a teenage daughter Jane (Thora Birch) who both seemed not to like him that much.

    Jane had a best friend named Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari), beautiful, bitchy and was shown in the film as the one who always talks. Lester had a "lust at first sight" for Angela first time they met at a cheering for a basketball competition in the latter's school. Angela made Lester hot all the time making his libido inflammation set to the highest. She wanted all the attention and he gave it to her.

    Consequently, Lester's relationship with his family turned out that no good. First, he and his wife used to fight over simple petty things and were always talking about having a divorce. Second, his daughter hated him for acting very stupid in front of other people and how he fights with her mother. She also hated him for being such a pervert, making reference to him having a crush on her best friend Angela.

    Jane met a weird acting Toby Maguire/Tom Cruise-ish looking guy from the neighborhood named Ricky (Wes Bentley) who shoots films as a hobby. His favorite subject: Jane. At first she seemed disgusted with the idea and of course, with Ricky himself because of acting differently. But moving on, they became good friends and ended as lovers.

    Lester met Ricky in a party and got acquainted when they both sniffed drugs at the garage of that same house. Lester became a paying customer for Ricky's products and rang him every time he needed a sniff.

    Lester's attitude towards other things, especially in his family and work worsened by the time he got into the marijuana thing.

    Kevin Spacey is one of the best actors of this generation. He is better known for his roles described for their darkness. Villainy and presumptuous. He is Lex Luthor in the latest Superman movie. He's much enjoyable in the 1997 modern film noir "L.A. Confidential".

    The film started in a cheap video clip of Jane talking about how she hated her father and wanted to got him killed. Then, it was followed by a voice over narration by Kevin Spacey. He tackled about how entangled his life was. Then the plot followed.

    I would like to commend first on the writer of this film, Allan Ball. He had a very good idea of writing stuff like this for the responsibilities of every member of a family. Second, Kevin Spacey. His every scene was filled with comedy, satire, sarcasm, drama, lust, everything. Third, the director, Sam Mendes who put everything right into place.

    It's obvious in the film the use of several pop, rock, and basic songs. The original score was done by award-winning

    Thomas Newman, also the one behind the music in Finding Nemo, WALL-E, and Scent of a Woman.

    American Beauty has a good cinematography and used conventional camera techniques to shoot scenes. I always remember there how the camera moves slowly in the dining table scene which is closely similar to the ones in the past that I could hardly recall. But I guess that was Robert Redford's 1980 "Ordinary People", if not, the "Godfather Part II".

    ROSE is used as symbolism in the film. Maybe it is to signify beauty, lust, or romance.

    The ending is touching with a touch of comedy. It is a very good movie.
  • Arrow1One
    December 4, 2009
    Arrow1One
    Ackward yet well directed story of people with relationship break downs due to lack of personal values and values found.
  • OoHSoAmaZiNg
    December 2, 2009
    OoHSoAmaZiNg
    PRETTY GOOD MOVIE, SORT OF DARK AND TRUTHFUL
  • universalkid1000
    December 1, 2009
    universalkid1000
    This is a work of art. Spacey gives an excellent performance.
  • david3042
    December 1, 2009
    david3042
    Good stuff. Kevin Spacey does well.
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