From its first gliding aerial shot of a generic suburban street,
American Beauty moves with a mesmerizing confidence and acuity epitomized by Kevin Spacey's calm narration. Spacey is Lester Burnham, a harried Everyman whose midlife awakening is the spine of the story, and his very first lines hook us with their teasing fatalism--like
Sunset Boulevard's Joe Gillis, Burnham tells us his story from beyond the grave.
It's an audacious start for a film that justifies that audacity. Weaving social satire, domestic tragedy, and whodunit into a single package, Alan Ball's first theatrical script dares to blur generic lines and keep us off balance, winking seamlessly from dark, scabrous comedy to deeply moving drama. The Burnham family joins the cinematic short list of great dysfunctional American families, as Lester is pitted against his manic, materialistic realtor wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening, making the most of a mostly unsympathetic role) and his sullen, contemptuous teenaged daughter, Jane (Thora Birch, utterly convincing in her edgy balance of self-absorption and wistful longing). Into their lives come two catalytic outsiders. A young cheerleader (Mena Suvari) jolts Lester into a sexual epiphany that blooms into a second adolescence. And an eerily calm young neighbor (Wes Bentley) transforms both Lester and Jane with his canny influence.
Credit another big-screen newcomer, English theatrical director Sam Mendes, with expertly juggling these potentially disjunctive elements into a superb ensemble piece that achieves a stylized pace without lapsing into transparent self-indulgence. Mendes has shrewdly insured his success with a solid crew of stage veterans, yet he's also made an inspired discovery in Bentley, whose Ricky Fitts becomes a fulcrum for both plot and theme. Cinematographer Conrad Hall's sumptuous visual design further elevates the film, infusing the beige interiors of the Burnhams' lives with vivid bursts of deep crimson, the color of roses--and of blood. --Sam Sutherland
1 But it has its flaws...
Namely, there was no reason to show Mena Suvari's breasts-a comment made by another reviewer that I hadn't thought about until I read that particular review. Also, are we to think that Kevin Spacey's character WOULD have had sex with an underage girl had he NOT found out she was a virgin??? This point is completely ignored and, upon reflection, takes some of the movie's luster away. However, I found the movie to be great nonetheless. So much of it rang true, even amongst the cliches, that it made a lasting impression. Given the passion that this film has created, I suggest renting it first, though I think most will end up buying it.
2 Pretty Silly, But Fun
(...)
The first time I saw American Beauty it was the last in three consecutive weekend movie run. The other two films were Fight Club and Bringing Out the Dead. All three films are about men trying to come to terms to what it means to be a man in America in this day and age. Fight Club finds meaning in deconstructing everything down to base needs, feeling through pain. Bringing Out the Dead gives meaning to its character through drug use, but is was in American Beauty that I found some sense of hope.
In the film, Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) plays a middle aged, middle class suburbanite, with seemingly everything he could desire. He has a good, well paying job; a beautiful wife (Annette Bening); a large luxurious house; and a lovely daughter (Thora Birch). Yet, with all of this he is not happy. In fact, all of these things are not quite what they seem. His employer is facing cut backs, and he may soon lose his job. He marriage is in shambles, and his daughter openly hates him. Early, we see him masturbating in the shower, in narration; he states this is the highpoint of his day. All is not well in the house of Burnham.
All of this changes when Lester meets Angela (Mena Suvari), his daughter, Jane's gorgeous, cheerleader friend. On first seeing Angela during a cheer routine, Lester feel a special, lustful connection. Later that night, Lester overhears Angela playfully tell Jane that if he would only work out, he would be sexy. His lust over this teenage vixen becomes the catalyst for the film and Lester's very life.
Soon after Lester quits his job, in fact he bilks the company for a year's salary by threatening to disclose scandalous information that he has become privy to. He begins smoking pot, buys a hot rod.. He plays with remote control cars, takes a job at a fast food joint, and of course does start working out. In every way he reverts back to his teenage years. Even the soundtrack begins blaring out classic rock tunes from the 1970's. Finally after years, decades even, of feeling low, miserable, not alive, he feels great.
This reversion back to his glory days is only the beginning. It is a reversion back to the days when he had fun, when he felt alive. But he is not a man who will stop there. This is just a beginning point to a life long conversion of living a full life, as opposed to a life full of the right things, but that is ultimately empty. Or it would be if he was not shortly dead (this is not nearly the spoiler you might think it is, for Lester announced his death within the first minutes of the film.) Towards the end of the film we can see that Lester is already outgrowing his childish behavior. When he yells at his daughter, he immediately feels the sting of regret. When given the chance to indulge in his lusts, he backs away, understanding that it is not right. Just as the music changed to classic rock with the first change, here it has changed again, turning into the same classic rock being covered by newer, contemporary artists.
Many will probably say that using the lust for a teen, and illicit drug us as a catalyst for change, is not a change for the better. I can already hear my mother scolding me for having seen the movie, much less reviewed it from 2,000 miles away in Oklahoma. Yet, here it works, and works well. I don't believe the film is saying that these things should be the means to a change, these things only served as means for this character to break free from the rut that had become his life. There is a telling scene where Lester and his wife are overcome with sexual desire. As he dips his wife to kiss her, she stops the embrace because he is near to spilling his glass of wine on an expensive couch. An argument ensues with Lester proclaiming that "it's just a couch," while his wife is horrified at the thought of ruining said couch. There lies one of the central themes of the film. That these characters are so wrapped up in the material that they lose sight of the better pleasure of life, including love making.
It is not a perfect film. The Burnham's neighbor, Col. Fritts (Chris Cooper) seems a caricatured archetype. His plays a hateful, homophobe who really carries deep rooted homosexual tendencies is too outlandish to be considered real. Though it must be said the part is played marvelously by Chris Cooper. Jane's speech about being a freak too, may move the young kids who consider themselves the nonconformist, shy-type, but it is too after-school special for my tastes.
I've left out some of the best scenes and an important character, Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley). He plays the drug dealing son of Col. Fritts, who likes to record everything on his video camera. There is a moving scene in which he and Jane watch an old tape of his of a plastic bag floating through the air. It is a moving, poetic scene that conjures up thought of the futility of life and its very beauty. It is that type of movie. It creates beautiful, moving, simple scenes that bring a sense of hope to life, while at the same time, showing the ultimate horror of living it.
(...)
3 about the movie American Beauty......
One of the good movie/film during the 90's period. A recommendation for those whom are interested in this genre of movie/films. Look out for some titles like Crook's work, Laurel Levor, Kenneth and Keith, Hooker's tragic loss, the fate of vignette's life, life of two women, sleeping beauty (Adult), Sexual fantasy, Sexual obsession and deviant sex lover if you can find any. Enjoy.....
4 One of the top films of the 1990s...
Nominated for eight Academy Awards, and winner of five including Best Picture, American Beauty is one of the best films of all time. Exploring the depths of the American Dream - a good job, a nice house, the perfect marriage, etc. - the film is dripping with symbolism and satire. A cinematic study of societal dysfunction, American Beauty will affect a broad range of emotions within its viewing audience, and it'll make you laugh as well. This is a great movie, and although some people will shy away from it, everyone should see American Beauty at least once so they can form their own opinion...
Kevin Spacey plays the role of Lester Burnham, a middle-aged suburban resident who seemingly lives the American Dream. He and his wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) have a nice house, a beautiful daughter Jane (Thora Birch), and successful careers. But things aren't always as they seem. In reality, the Burnham's are the definition of dysfunctional. They fight over everything, screaming at the dinner table about ridiculous things such as vegetables. Carolyn is engaged in an affair with rival real estate broker Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher), and Lester is suffering from a creeping depression/mid-life crisis.
Meanwhile, Jane is developing an infatuation with the strange boy who recently moved in next door, Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley) - a drug dealer/homespun director with a homophobic Marine Corps father, Frank. When the source of Frank's homophobia bubbles to the surface, we learn that - just like the Burnham's - most of the neighborhood is living a different life from that which shows on the outside...
Kevin Spacey follows up his amazing performances in The Usual Suspects and L.A. Confidential with his Academy Award for Best Actor in this film. Some of the funniest scenes in American Beauty involve the depressed Lester Burnham and his mid-life crisis meltdown. The way in which Spacey walks out of his job is utterly hilarious, and his weed-smoking, weight-lifting regimen in an effort to get pumped up and impress his daughter's friend is classic. But Spacey's performance is not alone. His brilliant role is complimented by Annette Bening's Oscar-caliber transformation into Lester's bitchy, cut-throat real-estate broker wife, Carolyn Burnham. Together, the two can stage an onscreen fight like no other fake married couple in cinema history, and it's a true pleasure to watch.
American Beauty is further strengthened by Chris Cooper's role as the Burnham's homophobic neighbor (October Sky, The Patriot, Seabiscuit) and Mena Suvari's role as the big-talking school girl Angela Hayes, object of Lester's desires (Kiss The Girls, American Pie). American Beauty is a film bursting with stage talent, one that benefits from solid direction, a well-designed screenplay, and superb dialogue. Odds are, you'll either love it or hate it. But irrespective of your final take, American Beauty will invoke passion one way or the other. That's why this film ranks as a definite must-see...
The DVD Report
5 This Movie Sums up Human Life
This is one of the most brilliant movies ever made. From the start, when you hear "Do you want me to kill him for you?" and then the dreaded "OK", the environment is set. Then, there is a pretty suburban neighborhood. No problems, right? Then Kevin Spacey's narration comes on the screen giving insight on everything, and you realise after looking closer (the tagline) that things are not what they appear. Every person in this movie has no formula, they are all so well produced. The writer has created amazing characters. They are all very different except for the fact that they do not understand the concept of how beautiful the world is (american beauty). The movie is about their journey through life and all the obstacles they must go through, and they are still standing, and make the best of everything.
With something like this, you would expect a huge soap opera, and crying and screaming every 5 seconds. There are jokes in this movie! This is a light-hearted movie for the most part, which is totally unexpected. This is basically a satire of humans, which is totally original. There are lines like "Are you trying to look unattractive?" "Yes" "Well, congratulations. You've succeeded admirably." That is so much better than saying, say, "You are so ******* ugly, my god!" "Shut up mom! You always complain over and over! I can wear what i want" "You are such a bad daughter!" This movie is so much more artistic than that. There is so much art in this movie, with the roses, and the camera. Everything is perfect. This is the only Best Picture winner of the oscars that i really LOVE.
And this movie is not just some depressed guy letting out his insecurities. There is a moral too, which is to appreciate life for what it is, and not what life is not. Ricky helps motivate this moral by showing a video clip of a bag on the street flying with the wind, and saying how beautiful it is. That is genius. No movie would ever in a million years think of something like that. Everybody says Ricky is so weird, but the point is that being ordinary is, for the most part, a bad thing. This movie tells you to be yourself and be original. This is not as negative as everybody else claims it is. Ricky is my favorite character from any movie. Look at this quote:
"It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... 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. "
Absolutely beautiful, and completely inspirational. That quote sums up human life, and what humans do not realize. People need to realize that there is more to life than if a pizza is late for delivery, or if the CD you want is out of stock, or if your partner for a tennis team is not a great player. Sometimes you need to just lie back and take the world for what it is, and realize the beauty of the earth. This movie sums up human life, which no other movie can ever come close to.
6 It's hard to stay mad when there's so much beautyInTheWorld
American Beauty-this film shows first the life of Lester Burnham who lives the ideal American fantasy: career, family and a house with a huge beautiful garden. But before long you find out what's behind this perfect fassade of Lester: he is very frustrated with his life: his wife (Carolyn) and daughter (Jane) don't think much about him, for them he is a loser. And also in his job he isn't content.
But he also knows that it isn't never to late to change your life. When he notices Jane's friend Angela at the basketball game of the school dancing for the cheerleaders he begins to have day dreams. His impulse to change his life becomes more an more. He falls into a mid-life crisis: He quits his job, sells his car and buys a firebird, smokes dope, and sells burgers at a fast food restaurant.
Lester Burnham fantasizes about Angela among the rose petals. But to make a real rose garden (or a real family life) grow, fantasizing is not enough. And he will soon learn that the ultimate freedom comes at the ultimate price.
His wife Carolyn also appears to be living the dream.She works in her beautiful garden with her beautiful clothes and has talks with her neighbour about her roses.
But career and appearance is the most imporant for her. So the changes in her husbands life doesn't delight her. But after a time also she begins to discovers herself after a affair with her work rival Buddy,and takes gun-shooting.
Their daughter, Jane , thinking that both have gone completely off the deep end, finds understanding at the boy next door, Ricky Fitts.
But if you think that the Birlings have problems , you have to meet Ricky's parents, the Fitts!
"American Beauty" is a wonderful film because it helps one to understand the many underlying emotions that people have in suburban America. Everything appears perfect, but in reality most of them a frustrated and find their life very boring.
Julia Bader
7 Interesting, bute not $11.24 value
I was not sure if I should rate the film with 2 or 3 stars. I choosed 3 stars because I think the rate is ok. The film is an interesting one but its nothing special. I mean, I would give:
5 stars for an special good film
4 stars for an great film
3 stars for an good film
2 stars for an simple film
1 star for an bad film
0 stars for an unbelievable bad film
Well, the actors are well choosen and the plot is interesting. All characters have their own problems which many people have in their real life & they have their own way to solve and live with this problems. Moreover it`s an very critical film of the american way of life although i am not sure if all americans understand this ...
it think it is no "must have seen" and i dont want you to give the advise to pay $11.24
8 Good but no must
The film "American Beauty" is about a guy who wants to celebrate his life. Therefore he tries to get more influence in his comunity. The actors are very well chosen for this topic so that the film shows a problem of our society in a very social critical way. This problem is the boring lifestyle (sleep-eat-work-eat-sleep) many people live today. The main caracter Lester tries to break out of this trod and it's very interesting to see how he does it. Sometimes the film has a boring action.
9 A masterpiece
This movie is the ultimate criticism of the "American Dream". At first we are introduced to a man, Lester, who is the definition of ordinary. He has a job he hates, a car his wife likes and a daughter who doesn't want to talk to him. To the outside he leads the perfect suburban life, but in fact he is totally dissatisfied. After meeting Angela, a friend of his daughter's he totally changes his life. He quits his job, blackmails his boss and starts to work out. Also he begins to consume pot.
Becomig more and more attracted by Angela he totally offends his wife by only doing what he likes.
In the end he comes very close to Angela, and his family breaks. His wife gets close to shooting him, but in the end it's probaply his gay neighbour who lets him pay for his trecheary of the American Dream. The director Sam Mendes tells this story by the frequent use of strong images, for example rose petals as a symbol for Lester's attraction to Angela, and fitting music.
By this the movie suceeds at showing the superficiality of the American suburban society and its "perfect families".
This makes "American Beauty" one of the best movies we've ever seen.
Frede & Lorenz
10 Portentously Inclined
American Beauty
A movie so compelling, so empowering , so inspiring that I could hardly believe what I saw. Just finished giving it my second watch.
My first watch made this the best movie I had seen till that date.My second watch taught me there are two types of emotions attached to tears. I cried out of the third though.
Thomas Newman's famous Plastic Bag Theme that plays its current of absolute enigmatic melody througout the film only adds to the overburdening significance of What I saw in this film.There are six main characters in this film. There are scenes when my brain waved an invisible white flag to what it saw.
Chris Cooper (Ricky's dad) has done many movies before. I quite enjoyed the absolute rigidity of his character. Kevin Spacey is just so befitting in this ordinary man's role of his that I would think twice before doubting his contribution to the whole plot.
The numer of times in this film that I felt this overwhelmed recreated feeling of absolute bliss is quite absurd.
Its alarming how absolutely flawless and perfect this movie stands.
Note:
If you have not seen this film , I don't believe your wasting your time reading this review of mine. I'm just a small chain to the process.There are some movies I feel that have impacting climaxes and some with solid concluding 20 mins.For American Beauty, the last two hours of the movie were the best.
I bow my head in salute to the makers of this movie.American Beauty is not a movie.Its the most soul binding 120 mins ever displayed on screen.The movie pushes itself into a genre beyond our lives. Yet Within.
11 Brilliant script
I am impressed by very few scripts written in the modern era, but am I surprised by Alan Ball's script for American Beauty. It's intelligent, wisecracking, filled with rich originality and real people with quirks and shortcomings - without making us feel distaste for them. In fact, it scuppers the idea of what we defines as really "beautiful" in suburban, modern consumerism-driven America. Sam Mendes does well with the direction to be almost oblivious, and the emsemble acting is outstanding (particularly Kevin Spacey), but ultimately, its Ball's screenplay which carries the day. The only thing I can fault here is that Ball's quasi-existentialist statements may feel a little glib at times - but, still, this movie's certainly rich entertainment for all that.
12 What a trip
What to say? Everyone else has said it all, Had to add 5 more stars, I basically never watch movies twice & knew ending; 2ndtime had me bawling because they're all so pathetic yet real, maybe 'cause I just made forty (ulp!) so now 'adult' enough to appreciate, beautiful to look at, think about from beginning to end
13 SPEC-TAC-ULAR
This is just that, Spectacular. A movie to be watched over and over again, I can honestly say this is one of my top 10 favorite movies what with the perfect cast/acting/script, no wonder this won "Best Picture". A movie that makes you look closer...
14 Does what it does so well, even too well
In general, I'm not a fan of movies mocking the American middle class. Usually they are condescending, politically-motivated hit pieces. Think: "Fun with Dick and Jane" or "Pleasantville" or the well-known "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit."
Every now and then, however, along comes a movie that is so well done, so clever, and so well acted and directed that even though you know what it's doing to you, it does it so well that you have to give it its props. American Beauty is such a movie. I have watched this movie from start to finish at least 10 times and own the DVD, and I still can't figure out how Sam Mendes and Alan Ball were was able to take the cliches of dead-end jobs, desperate housewives, superficial teenagers, alienated children, closeted military men and pseudo-philosophical drug-dealers and turn them into something entertaining to the point of profound. It's going to take another 10 viewings to find out.
15 GARBAGE FOR THE GARBAGE MINDED VIEWER
I nearly vomited when I saw this travesty. To think that it won an Oscar for Best Picture is totally in keeping with the depraved Hollywood style of today. If you prefer decent films stick with the black and white classics or most of Disney. American Beauty should be retitled "American Ugly". There is nothing beautiful about this film. It is grotesque, glorifying just about every decaying moral in today's society. This type of film is what is wrong with America today. Heaven help us!!!
16 Has to be in the Top Ten EVER ..Brilliant a Masterpiece.
As Human Beings we are not perfect ,we have our Desires and Fantasy's good and bad ,in this Movie ,a man facing the possiblity of a lifetime of Mediocraty reaches the point of self destruction ,but Lester is such a likeable guy that it almost seems permissible what is going on in his world and the way he is conducting his affairs ..When he reaches the desired position with the young lady, that Primal urge to procreate that lies (sometimes dormant depending on who you are with)in all men, LESTER realises to his total disappointment that he cannot bring himself to do it (apart from the fact it;s statutory RAPE),
the innocence of her is Beautiful and his reaction is reassuring that in the Madness there is some sanity ,the Dichotomy is he wants to relive his youth when life was not so complexed and she wants to be a Adult and see's Sex as the prerequisite ...the Scene is Awesome and thats just one of the Amazing sensuous points of this Incredible Movie .. the Plastic bag scene which is so eloquently explained by a previous reviewer, is a ONE OF A KIND...that brought out feelings in me that were overwhelming .
17 Death of a Salesman for the 90's
A film like this not only entertains while you're in the theater but also drops subtle questions in your head about the nature of human behavior and the gulf between fantasy and reality. After watching this movie, viewers will think long and hard about their own lives as well as the lives of people around them. The movie spells out the social disillusionment phenomenon everyone experiences but can't really grasp.
American Beauty reminds us that, like Lester, we really have no idea what we really want. We're not rational creatures as economists assume we are. Our instinct might lead us to perform one action, yet our brains might tell us to perform the complete opposite. We may lust after material belongings, yet how do we know we will still treasure those material belongings once we obtain them? Lester may lust after Angela, yet once he feels her in his hands and finds out the truth about her sexuality, an entirely different feeling comes over him.
Ricky Fits, the drug-dealing boy next door, is able to look beyond conventional notions of attractiveness and find beauty in non-promiscuous, solemn girls as well as in plastic bags floating in the wind. When many criticize the movie, they say, "Where's the beauty in a plastic bag?" And that's the point. We live in a world of aesthetic subjectivism. What one person finds attractive, another may find repulsive, yet the urge is there for people to assume aesthetic absolutism. "It's just a plastic bag! How can there be beauty in it?" Well, a human being is just an aggregation of tissues, bones, and blood. How is that attractive? It depends on how you look at it. Reality is shaped by perspective.
Some people criticize the Ricky Fits character because he records his life experiences on tape and doesn't actually experience them. But time moves inexorably in one direction. Time cannot be stopped. In a physical sense the past and the future don't exist. We are only conscious in the present. Everything we do, everything we achieve, every bit of happiness we experience -- they are all eventually buried in the past by time. Recording subjective beauty is a means by which one can attempt to salvage beauty from the past into the present because time eventually destroys all beauty. If you don't believe me, walk into a pre-school and then walk into a nursing home. Remember that all the old men and women in the nursing home were once little kids.
Another profound element of American Beauty is in the tag line: look closer. An individual's behavior is not independent of his environment. Humans are conformists by nature, and humans will modify their behavior to assimilate into existing social categories. If any individual dares to stray from the category to which he has been assigned, he is shouted down and ostracized. No one can resist the urge to conform, so why bother? Everyone is nice in public, yet on the streets they blare their horns, scream, and swear. Some boys I know pretend to hate American Beauty because on the surface it seems like a "chick flick." They force themselves to watch gory horror movies and show off to others how they can stomach intense violence and excessive sex scenes. In American Beauty, Angela acts like a total slut, as many girls seem to nowadays. In the end, however, she is not what she makes herself out to be. Colonel Fits tries to act like such a man, yet in the end it's all just a giant facade. Civilization is but one giant movie, and members of society must start acting their parts if they want to belong to this civilization. Otherwise, they're outsiders. Try walking into a job interview without a tie. You'll be thrown out. That is the power of convention.
What if I asked you this question: What do you want in life? Most people would say, "happiness." But is happiness worth deluding yourself for? Carolyn Burnham shields herself from sadness by adopting a positive-thinking philosophy, a philosophy of self-affirming mantras and harsh self-discipline. Positive thinking may help you attain your goals, but positive thinking also blinds you from reality. Is it wise or moral to change the channel when you hear about mass starvation in Africa so you can enjoy moments of fleeting happiness from a cheap romance movie? Self-help is just a euphemism for self-deception. All humans need some complex fraud to distract them from the harsh and nihilistic realities of life, whether it's religion, money, or even love.
In spite of American Beauty's greatness, there are problems. Characters are stereotypical, but viewers will hardly notice unless they're ultra-critical. Anyway, exaggeration is essential in satire so that certain points are made obvious to viewers. Furthermore, Alan Ball's original screenplay is slightly edited. The ending is more optimistic and doesn't quite fit in with the movie's overall nihilistic themes. Ball's true message, therefore, is slightly blurred because we don't know whether his message came from his heart or from the portion of his brain that maximizes profits.
Problems aside, Sam Mende's debut movie is one of the greatest I've seen. Not only is it entertaining but it is also filled with ideas you can think about. It's an important film for society because there's so much society needs to learn. One girl I knew refused to watch American Beauty because, as she said, "I'm not gonna watch a movie with a name like that!"
Look closer.
18 Haunting and Disturbing
I rented American Beauty and I expected to be horribly offended at the father's infatuation with the young girl. When the movie came out I was fifteen and the idea of someone's father lusting after me made me want to gag, however that was only a small part of the story, the rest of it was absolutely spell binding.
Usually when I watch movies I knit, because I like to do two things at once but I could not get over how involved I was in the movie and the characters and how everything was not like it seemed.
Annette Bening was fabulous as the controlling mother who had to have everything go her way but was really falling apart. I like the how Mendes showed how their marriage was falling apart because she was so obsessed with material things. Wes Bentley had some beautiful lines and Chris Cooper was stellar because he always is. The acting and writing was top notch as was the directing. I loved how there were mainly three colors used, black, white, and red. There are other colors obviously but those were the main three and they were used exceptionally well.
I grew up in suburbia and I can attest things are not idyllic but they are not as melodramatic as this story was. I think the point was to show that people in the suburbs feel they have to hide their dissapointment and they lie to cover it up in disgusting shameless ways. The cinematography was gorgeous as well.
Reading other reviews many people who had problems with this film had issues with the homosexuality, which ironically was a small part of the film and not offensive as a man lusting after a girl the same age as his daughter. I do not think the moral of the film was "let's all be gay and let's hate American values" it was to mainly look closer at a sterile place where everything was "perfect and living the American dream" and realize that no place is perfect and to appreciate beauty in flawed things-ie Wes Bentley's character and Kevin Spacey. I personally think that is a beautiful moral and that this is a beautiful and engaging film.
19 beauty, comedy, and tragedy at the same time
This movie, like the more recently released The Assassination of Richard Nixon, is centered around a middle aged man whose midlife crisis is causing his life to fall apart. However, in this movie, unlike Assassination, the man in question (Kevin Spacey) has a bit more of a sense of humor. The story begins with Spacey narrating from a place of being recently dead--so we know from the start that the movie is going to end tragically, although we do not know how. Spacey seems, however, to be quite okay with the idea of being deceased.
Spacey is, basically, bored with his life. He seems uninspired with his work and, in any event, there are rumors of downsizing when a new boss is hired. His wife (Annette Benning) is more motivated, although not entirely successful, in her work as a real estate agent, and seems a bit disgusted with her husband's lackluster career. Their relationship seems somewhat loveless (Spacey describes masturbating in the shower as the high point of his day). His daughter (Thora Birch) is also very bored with life, and hangs out with a cheerleader friend (Mena Suvari) for whom Spacey eventually develops a strong crush.
The Fitts family moves in next door. The father, a Colonel (Chris Cooper), is homophobic (and, we later discover, ironically also a closet gay) and abusive with his son and most likely his wife. The mother (Allison Janney) is nearly catatonic for unexplained reasons that may have to do with abuse by Cooper. The son (Wes Bentley) has spent time in a psych ward, but is also secretly a drug dealer and a rather successful one at that.
These characters set the stage for the characters' various antics that follow. Spacey is ultimately fired from his job, but blackmails his employer into a hefty severance package. He starts smoking marijuana with Bentley and develops a strong crush for Birch's friend Suvari when he overhears her expressing an interest in sleeping with him. He uses the money from the severance package to buy a new car and basically starts living the life he wished he'd had in his youth.
Benning is increasingly disgusted with her husband's behavior--it seems he can do no right in her eyes--he is disgusted with him masturbating but equally disgusted with the idea of having sex with him. She is much more attracted to the top local real estate agent, with whom she has an affair both because she finds him sexy and because she hopes to learn more about selling real estate from him.
16-year-old Birch is initially disgusted by Bentley's voyeuristic habits--he has a nasty habit of following her around and filming her with his camcorder. Yet she eventually discovers his love for beauty in everything that he films, and, after a confrontation with her mother, poses bare breasted in the window as Bentley films her from next door. Bentley is caught and violently confronted by his Marine Corps father.
This sets in motion the sequence of events that lead to the film's tragic end. What is beautiful about this film is that the characters are not in total denial about their lives unravelling. They know what is happening--the career problems, the marital breakdown, and the affairs--and yet all of the central characters, in their own way, are still able to see the beauty in life and to enjoy the positive, even with everything that is going wrong. In fact, it is perhaps because of the pervasive theme of tragedy that they are more able to stop and enjoy life when given the opportunity.
So--in many ways, not an altogether happy movie, and yet a surprisingly uplifting one give the final outcome. A well earned Oscar for best picture.
20 Look closer into this movie.
Lester Burnham ( Kevin Spacy) is a depressed workaholoic man whom is tired of his same-old life including wife ( Annette Bening). His marriage is falling apart, he fantasizes about his daughter's ( Thora Birch) best friend Anjelica ( Mena Suvari) and there's a boy next door whom is obessed with Burham's daughter.
A fantastic film worthy of all those awards even for best picture of the year, it's a funny and serious look at suburban America with some great photography, good acting and a nice music score by Thomas Newman. Ot's also a must see movie! it definitely makes you think, laugh and cry with all those emotions to help propell the film.
The DVD is stupendous with it's featurette, Commentary by Director Sam Mendes and Alan Ball, two trailers for the film, DVD-Rom stuff, storyboard presenation with commentary and production notes.
A beautiful and tragic dark comedy that will definitely be enjoyed for years to come for moviegoers.
21 WOW!!!
I LOVED This movie. MY favorite part was Wes Bently's rear end. The rest was only OK. The part about the plastic bag was great. They are good for holding stuff. they are very useful.
He has the best butt that i have seen. see it.
22 Not ANOTHER film about surburbia!
I am the first to admit I watch a lot of movies. In fact, I watch far more movies than the average person ever should. That I don't burn through DVD players every few months or wear eyeglasses the size of a mountaintop telescope is amazing considering I mix my movie experiences with healthy doses of reading and studying for my master's degree in history. I came to the conclusion long ago that I need my hour and a half a day movie to relieve stress. And since I avoid broadcast television like the plague, spending a couple of hours with a movie ensures I stay plugged into the all important pop culture conduits that crisscross every level of our society. Despite what most people say, movies and movie watching will tell you more about the world you live in than any other source of information. One need go no further than the movies, although I would recommend books as well, to understand the history of modern America. Take the 1990s, for example. No other film sums up the decade of political correctness, the Clintons, and the culture wars better than "American Beauty." How you look at this film depends entirely on your opinion of that decade.
"American Beauty" tells the story of the Burnham family, specifically patriarch Lester (Kevin Spacey), matriarch Carolyn (Annette Bening), and daughter Jane (Thora Birch). Set in a place the lunkheads in Hollywood hate with the heat of a million suns, suburbia, the movie begins with Lester speaking in voiceover. He tells us that he died, and he tells us that he will show us why he died. O.k., that's an interesting way to hook the viewer. And since Spacey's a pretty talented actor, I'll keep watching. The Burnham household is not a haven for happy campers. Lester slaves away all day at some phone/marketing job that he obviously hates. Wife Carolyn spends her time competing with Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher) in the dog eat dog world of real estate. Jane Burnham is a teenager obviously unhappy with her physical appearance since we see her checking out plastic surgery sites on the Internet. Although the Burnham family does not yet know it, their lives are about to transform in significant ways. It all starts when Lester loses his position at the firm due to a restructuring. Fortunately for him, he knows some sordid information about his employer that allows him to walk out with a hefty severance package.
Lester's change--let's call it a regression to the halcyon days of his youth--isn't due solely to his dismissal at work. Jane's attractive friend Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) captured Lester's eye, and when he overhears her make a comment about how good looking he is, Burnham decides to embark on a radical regimen of weightlifting to improve his physique. Lester also takes a stand against his overbearing wife for the first time in years, which eventually drives Carolyn into the arms of an unlikely lover. In the meantime, Lester also buys a hotrod, finds a job at a fast food restaurant, and begins to dally in drugs with the help of neighborhood dealer and new next-door neighbor Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley). Jane falls into the orbit of the enigmatic Ricky as well, and the two strike up a rather unusual relationship in which both can find solace from their emotional pain. Ricky's life is far from perfect; he must constantly deal with his physically and psychologically abusive former military officer father, referred to as the Colonel (Chris Cooper). The entire film centers on how these various people interact with one another.
When "American Beauty" came out in 1999, we all heard the endless panegyrics praising every aspect of the picture. Those "in the know" proclaimed it a modern masterpiece, a sublime objet d'art that cut to the core of the modern American existence. Uh...no. I'll accept the argument that Kevin Spacey turned in a stellar performance as a man so tired of his dreary existence that he seeks refuge in the comfortable memories of his teenage years. I'll also accept the claim that Wes Bentley does a fine job in the difficult role of Ricky Fitts. I think all of the performers did a good job with their respective parts. But "American Beauty" as a modern masterpiece? An insightful look into the vacuous core of modern America? Sure, if you're a left-winger who thinks America is a horrible place to live. According to this film, if you're a member of a traditional American family living in the suburbs you will never be truly happy. You will never find fulfillment in anything you do because your existence is pretentious and emotionally stilted. Moreover, it's been a long time since I've seen a film that harbors this much hatred for the armed services. According to "American Beauty," military men are pure evil because they collect guns, National Socialist regalia, physically abuse their family members, and are deeply hypocritical about very personal issues. The film makes sure that it draws a distinct connection between military service and these traits; it hits you over the head with it repeatedly. I could go on and on.
Extras on this "Award Edition" DVD include behind the scenes stuff, a commentary track with the director and writer, storyboard presentations, two trailers, cast and crew biographies and filmographies, and production notes. I think I can still give the film three stars solely for the great performances, the even better score, and good atmosphere (love that opening shot swooping down the street). But I find the beating of chests and gnashing of teeth plotline about the destructive effects of suburbia banal and extraordinarily false.
23 The horror, the horror...
This movie is about a man's (Kevin Spacey) mid-life crisis and his offset views about life. In addition to that, his family (and apparently everyone on his block) are having breakdowns too.
In my opinion, this movie would have been better if Kevin Spacey had just walked on screen for a second and said "life can be crazy at times, so just slow down and see the beauty." In fact, that would have been great in comparison to the movie that it really was.
My question is where was the reality? The story is an attempt to reach out to people and show them something they understand or can relate to. However, the attempt to do just that though fails because there are too many ridiculous sub-plots thrown in: whether it be pedophilia, insecurity with one's homosexuality, power hunger, greed, and lust, or just a lack of reality with the world.
Most of these characters would be labeled insane if checked out by doctors, and none of them having anything in connection to the real world. Kevin Spacey's character is much more like one of Ayn's Rand's characters in that he is the epitome of selfishness (and I like Ayn Rand).
Warning: if you want to see a film that covers a similar topic in a better way then watch Life As A House, but if you want to see what all the fuss is about then ask someone. Because, watching this movie is more then just a waste of one's time, it is a degradation of one's mind.
24 Everything Is Not What it Seems
It's one thing to not like a film such as "American Beauty" because you enjoy more car chases and more explosions. It's quite another to deem a film as a pile of poo when clouded by one's own personal views of "morality". It tends to blind sight a film viewer from understanding the actual "moral" of the story. Despite some glaringly misguided and erroneous perceptions of "American Beauty" by some on this site, this film is a masterpiece in performance, cinematography and screenwriting. The storyline has been well documented here, so I will delve into other concepts this film. (Warning: Spoilers)
"American Beauty" is not a film about homosexuality. It is not a movie about morals. It is not a film about stereotyping military men, nor is it about pedophilia. This film is a look into the concept of the American Dream, and how it might not be what it seems. We fall into ruts. We have mid-life crises. Husbands and wives move in other directions and find contempt for each other. Teenagers can be moody and hate their parents, because 1) they are too self absorbed to notice them, or 2) they don't know how to communicate with them. People step out of bounds to move up in a career. Beauty queens are hiding more innocence than one would suspect. Some others live in a hypocritical world, hiding what they are, staying tightly wound, perceiving others to be what they are not, and spewing hatred over things that aren't true. In a nutshell, everyone in this movie is trying to be something they are not. In doing so, they are missing out on the blessings on what they already have, and the humans they are meant to be.
Lester Burnham said that he "felt like he was in a coma for the last 20 years and just woke up" after laying eyes on the luscious Angela Hayes. In fact, he awoke into another dream, dwelling in fantasies, reliving a rebellious youth, quitting his job, smoking joints and pumping iron as his fantasies of the rose pedaled Angela drives him. (And don't count out the meaning of those roses - they turn up everywhere). When he faces the realization of his fantasy by starting his seduction, he discovers that the dirty, naughty Angela is a frightened child, no different than his own Jane. He has now - finally - awoken from that coma. Just as he begins to conceive his blessings, tragedy steals them from him. In death, he sees the truth in his life: his lovely daughter Jane, his wonderful house and the memory of his carefree, happy wife laughing on an amusement park ride. In two gunshots Lester drifts in an afterlife limbo - viewing the world in which he once lived as the most sensuous, beauty he ever set eyes on. Just like Ricky Fitts (the only character who relished beauty in the world with a poetic longing) sees it in a plastic bag, dancing with the wind.
What stuck me most about "American Beauty" is not only the story we're experiencing on screen, but the story we won't see: the aftermath of Lester Burnham's demise. Who will be blamed for Lester's death? Will Carolyn? Ricky? Jane? Frank Fitts? What about Carolyn and the devastation over the loss of the husband whom she let slip through her fingers in moments of anger, neglect and put downs? What wreckage will be left in this family? How will they live with the memory of having given such careless thought to the life they once had and will never have again?
The Oscars this film has garnered speaks for itself. So, before one gripes about homosexual stereotypes and morality in this film, think about what you are not seeing. Put aside your political agenda, and look beyond what you find ugly or wrong and render the universal meaning of this film. The unsavory facets of a story are devices to make you THINK - no matter how offensive. That's what storytelling and film are about. Much like Captain Frank Fitts, you might dwell in misconceived notions that veer off the path of truth, thus missing out on the beauty of the story entirely. If you don't like it, Disney films are a good alternative.
25 A Movie Gem
An appealing film on many different levels - visually, viscerally, and emotionally. For his first film, director Sam Mendes did an awesome job. Each frame was meticulously framed and shot with perfection. My initial reaction was one of being stuck by the pure visual sensation of the movie.
The storyline was also one that many can relate to. Here is a beautiful couple, Lester and Caroline Burnham, with good jobs and a beautiful daughter, Jane, who live in a beautiful home in beautiful neighborhood. Despite having what appears to be the ideal life each one is thoroughly unhappy and is searching for something they think they lack. Lester and Caroline are dissatisfied with their jobs and each other. Jane hates her body and her parents. Each searches for what they believe is a more meaningful relationship - Caroline with successful married real estate agent, Lester with Jane's sultry girlfriend, and Jane with the strange boy who lives next door. This certainly doesn't fully represent everyone's life but does reflect some small element in each of us.
Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and Thora Birch give solid performances but it's Mena Suvari at her sensual and sultry best.
26 Satire with Heart
A satire about middle-class modern American life, American Beauty is a cut above other satires because it has heart and a complex understanding of its characters. Kevin Spacey, who plays a disaffected, cynical father alienated from his wife and daughter, wins our sympathy even as he tries to reclaim his youth by listening to Led Zeppelin, smoking pot, and flipping burgers at a fast-food joint. His character growth in the film makes American Beauty transcend another nihilistic exploration so that the film's analysis of the American Dream ranks up there with Midnight Cowboy and The Graduate as a masterfully articulated rebuke of our blind pride and infatuation with our middle-class trappings. If you like American Beauty, you might check a less celebrated satirical film that came out the same year and that tackles similar themes, Election. For an even more depressing look at middle-class America, check out the 1997 film starring Julianne Moore called Safe.
27 Beautiful Master-piece
Are you looking for a movie that you can relate too? Well, here is the movie to see American Beauty. This movie is rated R because it has an intense sex scene, and sexual, drug, and profanity content. This movie won five academy awards in 1999. It stars Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Allison Jenney, Peter Gallagher, Mena Suvari, Wes Bentley, and Chris Cooper. Everyone can relate to at least one of the characters and to the desire of temptation in the movie.
In the movie, they take an ordinary suburban middle class family and analyze it. The movie has an average family, the mother Carolyn, father Lester, and a daughter named Jane. Lester is a middle age man who is raging against the dying light. Carolyn is frigid and furious, but is incredibly vulnerable and lost. Jane is impassive, unreadable, and mad at the world.
During the movie, Lester is going through a mid-life crisis. His wife deprives him of emotional, physical, and "sexual" love. His daughter and he are growing apart, which makes him very weary. He starts to look at his life and realizes he was not happy anymore. At this point, he starts to realize he has the power to turn everything around-and he does.
For an example, during the movie he quits his job and blackmails his boss for a whole year's salary. He then buys the car of his dreams. After that he decides, he wants to work for a burger joint because it reminds him of his good old days. While trying to regain his formative years he starts smoking pot and working out.
The artistic symbolism grabs onto any artistic views and pulls you in. It shows how people imprison themselves in cages while hoping for escape. It is a black comedy including mystery and twists. One artistic symbolism, materializes as each character has their moments of solitariness. The rose petals gave it a beautiful yet lull way of expressing the desire of temptation.
28 INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL
American Beauty is pure genuis. Right when I saw that paper bag with the leaves I knew it was going to be a hit.This movie is a piece of art, something just speaks to me when I watch it. Its such a masterpiece couldn't have put it better myself. its better than life. I can't stop watching it, all of the actors are so good and real. Kevin Spacey is the best actor and it shows. And the "beautiful freak" is my secret love. That movie is meanigful and I absolutely love it, go ahead and buy it trust you won't be sorry. Its my favorite movie without a doubt.
29 Startling examination of an escape from tedium
First things first. Yes, this movie is as good as you've heard. It does deserve every award it has received. It does not, however, leave you uplifted and happy.... or does it? Yes, it has a somewhat ambivalent message, and I think revels in the fact that it is somewhat ambivalent. Kevin Spacey's character dies, but dies happy and actually smiling. He gets his wish, in terms of one of his daughter's friend, and then realizes that he can't take the opportunity.
And so on and so on.....
If you haven't seen it, see it. If you saw it a long time ago, see it again.
30 Not a 'pretty' movie
If this movie is about dysfunction, then the creators have succeeded. They have displayed that dysfunction can range from non-communication to drug dealing to murder. In the end, the message is unclear and somewhat alarming.
I can't say I hated this movie, but it is not what I call entertaining. The story of a suburban neighborhood and it's off the wall residents does not ring very true with most of my experiences but writer Alan Ball and director Sam Mendes seem to want us to believe that what happens is fairly normal. Maybe I mis-read their message. Maybe they have no message. It's possible that they're painting a scenario in which two dysfunctional families are thrust into each other's lives and the combination of certain elements (repressed gay father, drug dealing son, isolated daughter and her mid-life crisis suffering dad) is the catalyst for several events that normally would NOT happen on the typical suburban street.
In any case and for the most part, I don't think the writer's story of these circumstances is a perception of real life. It may be his perception as he grew up, but perception is relevant. His perceptions may have been born out of his life growing up and what he experienced. Between this movie and his work with the HBO show Six Feet Under, I have to draw the conclusion that he not only has an obsession with death, but he might be gay himself. Please don't go off in a tizzy, there's nothing wrong with being gay. But these days, gay people suffer hatred of those intolerant and his writing may be a reflection of the intolerance he has experienced. Most writers write from what they know, and this may be no exception.
But I could be wrong as well. He may be just writing about gay people, in which he has written some very good work, exploring them as humans and their different facets. We have a perfectly normal gay couple living on the street, as well as a gay father who is repressing his own homosexual tendencies.
Kevin Spacey plays his role very well. From the beginning we are made full aware of his daily anguish that he goes through trying to deal with his life. What I don't like is the way irresponsibility is displayed as acceptable, and even praised behavior. The creators are trying to make me believe it ok that a father can just quit his job to chase his youthful dreams. It makes me really mad that the young teenager who is selling drugs is the one we are supposed to see as the hero when he comes knocking on the door of his girlfriends house telling her he wants to take her away to Amsterdam. Do we think they are going just for the history? No.
This is my biggest problem with this film, that I can't see any reason to like any of the characters. Relating to them is liking them. No one seems to think they can be held accountable for their actions, and I cannot relate to that at all. There are consequences to everything we do, good and bad. And no one in this film seems to have consideration for those around them, and the story does not display this, except when you turn down the advances of a homosexual neighbor, then you may be shot in the head.
I mentioned before that I believe Alan Ball has may have an obsession with death, and if his writing is a message about living life to fullest before we die, then fine, I can understand that. But life is about balance, and balance requires a dose of reality and doing what needs to be done as well as what wants to be done. I'm sure we would all like to save time by not eating or sleeping, but we have to do it...or else we die.
Let me end on a good note; the movie is very well acted and photographed. The performances by Spacey and Birch are top notch and Chris Cooper is always reliable as well. The movie is watchable, if not a little slow at times. In all, I would say it's a good movie, if you like movies that have no redeemable characters and there is no good that comes from the story. Please don't misunderstand, there is nothing wrong with this type of movie, it just isn't entertaining for me, and that is just my opinion, even if it is unpopular.
31 Pro-Homosexual, Morally Confused Garbage
This film is hard to believe. Although it is well-made and generally sustains interest, it's message is poisonous.
The "hero" is a teenage drug peddler. He sees artistic beauty in things like a corpse with its brains blown out.
A neighborhood gay couple is portrayed as blissful and well-adjusted; by comparison the two heterosexual couples are miserable and dysfunctional. One heterosexual father quits his job during his midlife crisis and starts an affair with a high school cheerleader (!!); the other hetero father is a sadistic control-freak. One heterosexual mother is a materialistic adulterous, the other a zombie. Their kids are lost.
It is revealed that the reason the one father is such an abusive hate-monger is because he denied his homosexual tendencies all his life.
The overall message of the film rings loud and clear: Embrace homosexuality and you'll be happy, have a normal family and you'll be miserable.
If you're a homosexual and want encouragement for your chosen lifestyle, then pick up this flick. All others should avoid like the plague.
32 Brilliant, life-affirming film.
Compare and contrast with Hemingway's "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber." The man with no debts and no assets is a free man. Kevin Spacey is impossibly brilliant in his role.
Look over your shoulder
find a four-leaf clover
Don't it make you feel like a
lucky man..?
33 A Perfect Example of Hollywood Depravity
Perhaps no other American industry has sunk as low as the entertainment industry in the past half century. We've gone from the inspirational work of Frank Capra to this kind of crap, which sadly wins awards in today's Tinseltown. People in the movie business are often under the mistaken belief that they are representative of the American public in general and, thus, their dysfunctional families are really no different from what is commonly found throughout the rest of our society. However, contrary to such misperceptions, the whole world does not live in screwy places like Malibu or Beverly Hills and divorce statistics are extremely misleading (see the work of Thomas Sowell and Michael Medved for the true story behind such stats). Many surveys have indicated that most Americans, particularly those who live in the much-maligned "red states," are fairly satisfied with their family lives; in Hollywood almost every marriage ends in divorce.
AMERICAN BEAUTY may not be the most egregious example of Hollywood's leftist, amoral, anti-family prejudice, but it could possibly be the most popular and acclaimed film to reek of such ugliness. Although first-rate actors such as Kevin Spacey and Annette Benning turn in convincing performances, the picture cannot escape its terrible message. Though it certainly contains some humor and even a few insightful moments, it is a victim of its own pretentiousness and sickening themes. The narcisism and nihilism of the film far outshine its few redeeming qualities.
Among its more ridiculous elements is the portrayal of the military father who is naturally a raging tyrant who despises homosexuals and brutally beats his own son. Hollywood's contempt for those who have served in the American armed forces has, perhaps, seldom been more fully realized than here. The film reaches an unthinkable low when this homophobic cretin turns out to be a closeted [...], thus illustrating the outlandish theory that those who express the most intense hostility for gays are, in fact, [...] themselves.
Meanwhile, most of the remainder of AMERICAN BEAUTY centers on the Burnhams, a couple (Spacey and Benning) and their estranged teenage daughter. This is a marriage made in hell. The family is embroiled in constant arguments and seems completely devoid of anything resembling love or mutual respect. Eventually, Spacey quits his job and, in the process, manages to swindle his way into a very generous severance package. Thereafter, he resorts to smoking endless amounts of weed. His new-found hobby brings on a phony sense of enlightenment (which, in La La Land, is akin to a religious experience) and he finally begins to discover happiness. While these wonderful events take shape, Benning's rather obnoxious character engages in an adulterous affair and becomes (oh no!) a rabid gun enthusiast, echoing the film industry's typical disgust for those who take advantage of their 2nd Amendment rights. In the meantime, the teenage daughter becomes involved with a troubled, young filmmaker (the military son) who spends much of his free time peddling dope. Another typical movie theme is indulged here: the kids in the movie are far more civilized and level-headed than most of the adults.
AMERICAN BEAUTY may be filled to the brim with offensive plotlines and characters, but its content is hardly surprising given the perversion that has captured Hollywood in the last several decades. Consistent with the rest of the film, the only normal, functional adults depicted are a gay couple that happens to live in the neighborhood. Everyone else is either a lunatic (the military father), an aimless dope smoker (Spacey), a faithless shrew (Benning), or a virtual zombie (the military wife). As in many other recent feature presentations, heterosexual marriage is portrayed in the most negative light possible. At the end of the film, there is an attempt to put a positive spin on what has taken place, but this is ultimately contrived, as one can hardly walk away from this picture feeling warmth or joy.
Once again the depraved sickos in Hollywood have managed to debase many of the values that average Americans hold dear. This film is not a cinematic triumph nor is it even very deep (it is actually quite superficial). The most revealing thing about the movie is this: the film industry is out of touch with most of the nation and it has nothing but contempt for that which is virtuous. Actors, actresses, and directors claim to be the most open-minded people in the world, but they are, in fact, among the most narrow-minded, intolerant, bigoted buffoons on the planet. They rail against capitalism and, yet, reap its many rewards; they champion gun control and, still, their films are awash in gratuitous violence; they preach tolerance and moral relativism, but spew venom towards Christians; they speak endlessly about their freedom of speech and, yet, blast anyone who uses such freedom to criticize the industry. Perhaps nowhere is the hypocrisy of modern leftism more fully displayed than among the Hollywood elite. We should reject these godless pagans and avoid the trashy movies that they mass produce. The film industry has become one of America's greatest liabilities.
34 Outstanding!
This movie is a MUST for your DVD collection. The film stars a great cast including one of my personal favorites Kevin Spacey. The script (although a little strange to hear about) is well written and academy award winning. The overall look of the film is extremely nice. The vivid colors in the movie are stunning and gives the film a very artistic look. On the DVD the picture quality is great and DTS sound blows you away with outstanding uncompressed 5.1 surround sound. You can't go wrong ordering this movie, its one you're going to watch a lot!
35 Perfection
Over the years, I have had many favourite films, usually based around either stunning visuals (Blade Runner) or incredible scripts (The Godfather). But the first time I saw American Beauty with my wife, I was instantly in awe of a film that has been my benchmark ever since.
To me, Alan Ball has written the perfect script. Beautifully structured, original, and with characters that are both fantastic and incredibly believable at the same time. The film is about finding beauty in the everyday. The brilliantly realised character of Ricky Fitts is the tool with which Ball gets this concept across to the audience, with his obsession of videotaping the miost mndane of subjects in a belief that they are truly beautiful. But the most beautiful part of the film is the portrayal of Lester Burnham - my new hero. Lester is a very frank and honest portrayal of a man - flaws and all. Ball does not shy away from even those embarrassing fantasies and weaknesses that all men would rather were not discussed or presented to a wider audience, (for example, Lester's sexual obsession with the teenage Angela). What Ball does, is make Lester beautiful for who he is, not what a Hollywood machine would normally have us see him as.As Lester accepts who he truly is, warts and all, he is able to transform into a person at peace with himself. The power in this transformation is tangible and incredible. Probably my favourite moment of the entire film (in a film filled with great moments) is the simple look on Lester's face when he is asked "How are you?" and his realisation that he is in fact "Great. I'm great. Thankyou."
Beyond the incredible script, of course, is the impressive directorial debut of Sam Mendes. Sam makes this film visually stunning to watch. Scenes such as Ricky's description of the floating plastic bag and his video of the event that he believes is beautiful would have failed miserably if Sam had not been able to create such a beautiful moment himself with that bag.
If you do watch the dvd, please take the time to listen to the commentary track. Mendes and Ball are fantastic and perform probably one of the best commentaries I've heard, both entertaining and informative at the same time.
I have lost count of how many times I have watched this film. Yet it rewards my attention every single time. Beyong the script, it is a beauty to watch. The sondtrack carries you through effortlessly. The photography is extraordinary. The performances unmatchable (watch Chris Cooper too - he is incredible in this).
American Beauty is an experience that everyone should try.
36 What else do you want?
They have given us everything in American Beauty. The visuals and music are a driving force. I loved the storyline, which holds you captive. Benning and Spacey are perfect in their "un-chemistry." I get the feeling they loathe each other's every breath.
Can't think of a single thing I didn't like about this movie.
Why haven't you watched this movie yet?
37 I rule!!
American Beauty is one of my all time favorite movies. ( If you've never seen this you might not want to read this. I give away the ending. ) From the first shot of a suburbian street in the fall, which is also the last thing we see, to the look on Kevin Spacy's face after he was shot. The look is such a look of contentment, a look of peace.
Lester Burnham as he puts it " have been living in a coma for 20 +/- years." From an outsiders perspective he, his wife Carolyn and their daughter Jane live the perfect suburian life. They have the nice house with the white picket fence, a well manicured lawn, and beautiful roses. At a closer look we see that their life is far from perfect. Lester and his wife don't talk, Carolyn is bitter and cold towards him and a little towards her daughter. " Janie honey are you trying to look unattractive." " Yes" "Congragulations you've suceeded admirably." Carolyn is very wrapped up in her career and is very hard on herself when she doesn't meet her goals. Jane is like any other teenager, angry and confused. She is saving up money for a breast augmentation, we see her breasts later in the movie and they are pleanty big. She hangs out with a girl named Angela Hayes who is a "model" or so she likes to think, who says she has done something with a lot of guys we find out later that that isn't true.
Move next door to the Fitz's house. The father Col. Frank Fitz rules his house with an iron fist. His wife is spaced out throughout the entire movie. It took me awhile to recognize her as Allison Janney. The actions of her are in no doubt a reaction to the likely abuse she suffered from her husband. Their son Ricky has recently been released from a mental hospital. He sells pot behind his father's back and makes quite a lot of money doing it. He covers for this by having a job as a cater waiter. Ricky is required to give his father a urine sample every 6 months to make sure he stays clean. One night Ricky smokes with Lester at a realator dinner, and that night his father asks him for a urine sample. Never fear, Ricky is very crafty. One of his clients is a nurse in a piediatrics office and she gives him clean urine samples.
Lester and Carolyn go to Jane's school to watch her performance on the dance team and that is where Lester meets Angela Hayes. She does something to captivate him and make him feel more alive than he has in years. He falls in lust with her. She too thinks he is rather cute and wouldn't mind screwing him, if he worked out a little. Lester hears this and immeadiatly starts to work out. Life at Lester's work is no bed of roses either. He is required to write up a report as to why he is a valuable member of the team and he writes up one saying how much he hates his job. He is of course fired, but he was happy because he wanted to get a job with the least amount of responsibilty possible. He sells his car and buys his dream car a 1970 Pontiac Firebird. He now speands his days working out, smoking pot, and working at a fast food place. This really pisses off Carolyn and she finds comfort in her buisness competition Buddy Kane , " The Real Estate King." She finds he has all the same buisness ideas and policies that she does and begins to have an affair with him. This makes Carolyn become more alive than she seems to have been any other time. It's funny that in order for this husband and wife to feel more alive they had to cheat on their spouse or dream of cheating on their spouse.
Lets go back next door and see what is up with the Fitz's. Ricky and Jane have started to become an item and Ricky shows her the " most beautiful thing I have ever filmed" a plastic bag was caught in a windstorm with a bunch of leaves. I will say that the video was pretty amazing. One night Lester beeps Ricky because he ran out of pot. Ricky says he is going over to give Jane her geometry book. Col.Frank suspects that something is up and goes to the window that looks into the Burnhams garage. He sees Lester and Ricky in there and it looks like Ricky is doing something to Lester when actually he is rolling a joint for him. This enrages Frank and when Ricky gets home he yells at him and tells him to get out. " I'd rather you be dead than a f****** faggot" Ricky leaves without a problem he has gained quite a substansial income from all the drug dealing. Frank is upset and goes to Lester's garage and kisses him. You can see here that Frank had some underlying homosexual tendancies. Ricky goes to Jane and asks her to go to New York with him. Angela is at Jane's house at the time and they have a fight about her dad and Jane leaving with Ricky. Angela goes downstairs and cries, Lester comes in and talks to her. Angela says she wants to sleep with him and they almost do until Angela admits that she is a virgin. Lester stops and makes her a sandwhich and asks her if Jane is happy.
Angela leaves to go to the bathroom, and Lester sits down at table and looks at a picture of Carolyn at a carnival. We then see a gun barral pointed at the back of Lester's head the camera moves to the wall and we hear a shot and see blood spattered on a wall. We hear a monolouge by Lester and find out that Frank Fitz killed him, because he didn't want him to tell anyone that he had kissed him.
This was an amazing movie. The feeling that I got from the movie was that we have to look closer at things because they aren't always what they seem. We also need to relax, breathe, and take a look around at all the beauty that is in the world. " I guess I should be pretty pissed off at what happend to me, but it is hard to stay mad when there is so much beauty in the world."
38 So good that it's almost surprising
I just finished watching this film. I did not expect it to be THAT good. I am torn by two contradictory emotions. I want to weep, yet I remind myself of the expression on Kevin Spacey's face at its finale, and I want to pay him homage by smiling and rejoicing in the mysteries of life.
American Beauty is simply great. If, halfway through, you think you are bored, hold your horses, because you will realize that a slow- down was needed for us to appreciate the grand finale and the wonderfully summed up "meaning of life."
Watch this movie, my friend, and then tell all your loved ones how much you love and appreciate them. Life is too short and unpredictable, we all know that, but what we forget, sometimes, is that while we're at it, we ought to live it with all the grace we can muster. Cheers!
39 Simply Beautiful
This movie is one of the greatest films of all time. It is very moving film that can make you laugh and make you cry. Its realism is what makes it so good. The film shows very negative things but makes you see the world in a very positive way and makes you appreciate life so much more.It shows how the little things in life can stand out and be beutiful if you look closer. This is the best performance of Kevin Spacey's career.I think alot of peole can relate to his charecter because he is sick of being a nobody and wants to take risks and live life to the fullest. Its a movie about finding your place in life and doing what you want because life is to short to worry about the little things. American Beauty is simply beautiful in everway.
40 "There's nothing worse in life than being ordinary."
Winner of Academy Awards in 2000 for Best Picture, Best Actor (Kevin Spacey), Best Cinematography (Conrad L. Hall) , Best Screenplay (Alan Ball), and Best Director (Sam Mendes), this genre-defying film appears, on the surface, to be a typical domestic drama, filled with black humor and containing a coming-of-age subplot--and then it becomes surreal. Lester Burnham (Spacey), like all the other characters in the film, is unhappy and alienated. He hates his job, dislikes his bosses, and resents his hostile and driven wife, but when he finally frees himself from his desk job and takes a job at a fast food establishment, everything in his life goes crazy.
Lester is not-so-secretly attracted to the bored, teenage friend (the flirty Mena Suvari) of his daughter (beautifully played by Thora Birch). His wife (Annette Bening) has shut herself off from him, and initiates a tawdry affair. His alienated daughter is attracted to the equally alienated, drug-selling teenager (Wes Bentley) next door, a boy who has just been released from a two-year hospitalization and who stands outside her house shooting videos. The boy's father (Chris Cooper), an ex-Marine, rules the family with an ungloved fist.
The Burnhams and the Fittses, next door, appear at first to be fairly typical suburban families, living typical suburban lives, but as these alienated people try, first, to cope with their alienation and then figure out a way to resolve it, the film becomes darkly surreal. Each character chooses to cope in an extreme way, a way that would not make sense for the "typical" families which they appear to represent, and eventually the characters, acting on their extreme choices, collide in a dramatic, horrifying conclusion.
Director Mendes somehow manages to make this genre-bending film work, creating a likable character in Lester (Spacey), a termagant wife (Bening) who manages to elicit a modicum of sympathy, and teenagers who exhibit the typical angst of their age while, at the same time, evoking our own tender memories. Even the domineering Col. Fitts becomes human as we see him trying to cope with his own threatening demons. The drama builds slowly, the tension rises inexorably, and the final scenes are intense. Astonishingly, even the final scene has elements of black humor. With all its Academy Awards, and its additional Academy nominations for Best Actress, Best Music, and Best Editing, this is a top-notch film which will interest film buffs and lovers of dark comedy, and its "heart" makes it unforgettable. Mary Whipple
41 Fascinating and Disturbing
I place "American Beauty" on the same pedestal as "Seinfeld." I enjoy(ed) both immensely for their entertainment value, yet I cannot help but be disturbed by some the cultural messages that they glorify.
Sam Mendes has, indeed, put together an unforgettable movie. You have Kevin Spacey giving the performance of a career as Lester Burnham, a straight-laced company man whose mid-life crisis begins when he meets the Lolita-like friend of his daughter. Mena Suvari is excellent as the aforementioned kittenish Angela--beautiful on the outside but oh-so ugly on the inside. Annette Bening plays Spacey's frustrated wife, a woman who is abhorred by her husband's descent into drugs, fast women, and fast cars, but isn't above getting a little on the side herself (courtesy of a real estate tycoon played by Peter Gallagher).
Thora Birch is in the role of Spacey's daughter, Jane, and gives an admirable performance of a teenager yearning for a way out of her dysfunctional family. She finds that exit in the form of Wes Bentley, who plays Ricky Fitts, a quiet teenage boy who moves into the house next door. He also moonlights as a major drug dealer, one client of whom happens to be Jane's father. Bentley's performance is truly superb.
Rounding out the major players includes Chris Cooper, as Ricky's father, a Marine Corp colonel with a very, very nasty side to him; and Allison Janney as Ricky's mother, who appears shell-shocked throughout the entire movie--no doubt as the result of physical abuse inflicted upon her by her husband. Both Cooper and Janney deserved to win Oscars.
The musical score and cinematography are both outstanding.
Despite my reservations over staring at such a sociological train wreck, I highly recommend this movie. DEFINITELY not for underage viewers.
42 Profound? Beautiful?? Honest??? Did we see the same movie???
What drives me nuts about this piece of snot--what gets my blood really boiling--is the way it deconstructs what are essentially Hollywood sins and then has the brazen gall to attribute them to suburbia. It's the Champagne set snickering at the yokels with slick condescension: "We also may lust after young flesh, pursue gross materialism and sell out to superficiality, but we are among the chosen elite and do it with so much more style that we are entitled to our vapidity."
I dare Hollywood to show me a better example of what it is that this flick purports to deplore than the behaviour of their own mewling overpaid oversexed self-worshipping stars. "Hypocrisy" doesn't cover it; the word "atrocity" comes close. Out-of-control mid-life crisis? Hollywood. Nubile young goddesses with trash mouths? Hollywood. Arrested adolescence? Hollywood. Manic materialism? Hollywood. Self-absorption? Hollywood. It beggars belief how many thinking people have been hoodwinked into going along with this perversion of reality.
This flick stands as a shining example of everything that is wrong with modern cinema. It is sanctimonious, stereotypical, pretentious, derivative, trivial, dishonest and phoney. Ohhh, let me count the ways:
Sanctimony--Annette Benning plays Carolyn Burnham, a grotesque parody of a domestic diva. She is a Stepford Wife run amok: so driven by appearances that she sells her soul to bourgeois hell. This flick wants to tell us that it is doing us a favour shoving its distorted mirror in our face. What a vile insult.
Stereotyping--A poor misunderstood dork has a father: who doesn't understand him; who is a sadist; who is a neo-nazi; who is a homophobe; who is a closet GAY sadistic neo-nazi homophobe; who is--gasp--a marine colonel. Why not also show him making blood sacrifices on a pentacle by the moonlight?
Pretension--"Beauty is not to be found in the perfect curves of a teenage goddess. Turn and look where you least expect to find it. See the plastic bag floating in the breeze?" In the context of a better movie, this might have amounted to something. Here, this film's tin-sentiment paper-thin superficiality just underscores the imagery's wretchedness.
Derivation--From "Man in the Grey Flannel Suit" to "Pleasantville" to "Edward Scissorhands", the supposed emotional bankruptcy of suburbia has been picked to complete and utter death. As targets go, it would be more challenging to hit the broadside of a barn.
Triviality--A man does not have the maturity to find the answers to the big questions in life by looking within himself. Instead, he blackmails his employer, lusts after a cheerleader, gets a McJob, gets high, gets a muscle car and gets dead. We are given to understand that this is terribly profound.
Dishonesty--The catering budget alone for this pestilent excretion exceeded what any suburbanite could hope to spend on a lifetime of redecorating, self-absorption and mid-life splurges. I wonder how much Kevin Spacey got paid. Hypocrisy, thy name is Hollywood.
Phoniness--Why do we need the fiction of an advertising man regressing to adolescence when we can see the real thing shining before us modeled by such luminaries as Jack Nicholson, Madonna and Cher? Muscle cars are, like, so passŽ. Travolta pacified his mid-life crisis with a private jet.
There are innumerable examples of good films that challenge us to re-examine our lives. But they do so with grace, with wisdom, and most of all, with humility--none of the smarmy, superior, condescending sanctimony that pervades this flick. Had this obscenity been set in Beverly Hills, with Kevin Spacey playing a director, Annette Benning an actress, Thora Birch their Hollywood brat, and Mena Suvari a rapacious starlet, it would have still stunk out the place. But it would have had the single grace of at least aiming for the right targets.
43 Perfect
I will keep this short and sweet. American Beauty is the most beautiful movie I have ever had the pleasure of watching. Alan Ball's ability to capture the humor that is part of the average suburban joe is truly extraordinary. I only hope this won't be the last "big screen" screenplay we see by him.
44 Is Kevin Spacey's Character Heroic or Not?
Got into a big debate with a friend when this movie came out.
Is Kevin Spacey's character a hero or not?
My friend said he was. My friend said that Kevin's decision to walk away from his job, blackmail his boss and chase his daughter's underage girlfriend were all heroic acts.
I did not think so at all. In fact, I thought that these things were self-absorbed, repugnant and intentionally anti-heroic. Ball depicted these things to invert the normal "arc of character" and show that, in a bizarre way, the character's ultimate destiny is fully deserved.
In another sense, his fate is a natural extension of Judaeo-Christian justice. Yet no one watching would want to be personally responsible for the act itself. Right?
Well, anyway, it's one of the ten best American movies of the last twenty years. If you do not see it, you will miss something really important and really beautiful.
45 Right is wrong? Wrong is right?
4 stars for the crisp cinematography, flawless performances, and incomparable artistry.
0 stars for the mindless message.
Poor Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey). Society pushes him to the breaking point and then punishes him for breaking. Can't a guy just be left alone to pursue his own depravity (taking drugs, having sex with children) and not have to worry about responsibility? This is all "the man's" fault. "Yuh know whut I'm sayin', mofo?"
Mean old capitalism.
46 If you cant relate the movie is somewhat shallow
Personally, i dont come from one of these wasp homes where the mom and dad stopped loving eachother and infidelity and promiscuity run rampant. Please dont right me off as some religious nut ball because i am an athiest i just have values.
In anycase, I thought the movie was ok, but just the fact that it won best picture (over the Green Mile -A much better film-) drove me nuts. I love kevin spacey too, but this movie didn't hit home for me and i dont think a good movie should do that. A good movie should appeal to everyone not just the people who judge the academy awards who come from these kind of families.
Anyways just my $0.02
47 Grotesque Beauty
Technically, this is a very well-crafted film, and the script does have a certain amount of black humor which is funny, but by and large I found the film nihilistic and demeaning to women, treating them solely as sex objects. Moreover, the one "hero" in the film is a drug dealer whose "occupation" detracted from his message of art and love.
I did watch the film through to the end simply because I could not believe it could get any worse, but worse it got. Nowadays this is considered a classic film that is studied in film courses, but in my own personal view only the technical aspects of the film are worth raving about. As a woman and a feminist, I find the movie greatly insulting. Sorry if anyone out there thinks me mean-spirited for this, but, that's the way I feel.
48 All-Time Favorite Movie
As the title of this review implies, this is my favorite movie.
...ever. To write a synopsis of the plot is an effort in futility, because this movie just cannot be understood without seeing it. Part of what makes it so good is the character development. Every character feels like a real person. You can understand characters that only appear briefly in a few scenes. Ricky Fitts' mother for example. She doesn't even have any crucual lines, but you get the feeling that you know what she's all about. The acting in this movie also contributes to that. Not only are all the characters developed, but the actors know their characters too. Kevin Spacey leads, but even the kids do a phenominal job. If you haven't seen this movie yet, see it.
...now.
Why are you still reading this?
49 An amazing and touching movie.
This movie challenges all that is normal in American culture. Kevin Spacey rocks it again with an amazing preformance. And can't even describe all the amazing points of this movie...from the subtle(and sometimes blatant)imagery...to the pro-drug and sex submessages. This is an all time classic and I recommend it to everyone. I hope all that see this learn something. I also like the dirty-old-man thing Spacey has going on. That makes me laugh. This is one of the small bits of joy in my life and I hope you appriciate it.
50 ONE OF MY FAVS OF ALL TIME
Finally, an honest look at the American family. The Burnhams are certainly no Brady Bunch. It's a movie about life's ups and downs, family, relationships, dreams and desires, growing pains, mid-life crises. It's a great flick for those viewers that don't take their films sugar-coated. BOTTOM LINE: Definetly a bitter pill to swallow, but it is puncuated by moments of beauty as well as sorrow. Overall, it'll make you take a good look at who you are and what you want. I could've done without the whole plastic bag part, though. Kinda cheezy. GRADE: A-
51 Visually and emotionally stunning
The power of this film is such that when, during my first viewing, someone said something stupid ("Whooo!" or "Sweet!" or something) when Angela opens her shirt, I honestly wanted to smack him. A rather disturbing story of lust, near statutory rape, adultery, murder, and drugs on the surface, this movie is really about escaping the drudgery of the prison-like existance which many lives, even those of the wildest college students, become upon reaching middle age and becoming part of suburbia. It is also about finding the beauty in the unnatural, the trashy, the stupid, the superficial, and the tragic. Really, the movie is best described by it's multi-level title: American Beauty, the rose which is a recurring image, the vacuous teenaged cheerleader/slut, the suburban landscape, and a piece of trash, floating in the wind. The film itself is perhaps the greatest piece of American Beauty that ever I've seen.
52 AN EXQUISITE AFFIRMATION OF LIFE
On the surface, this stunner from Sam Mendes is such a relentlessly bleak look at the vacuity of the supposed "American Dream" that viewers may just turn off to it en masse. And it shows in the acute polarization of reviews here on Amazon.
But if you can be a little less knee-jerk and not shut off all rational thought when confronted with what's disturbingly familiar, you may also find that the film is genuinely, voraciously amusing, and directed with such breathtaking flair that Spacey's bravura performance seems like a career-defining one.
Beneath the surface of all the seeming pettiness in our daily idiosynchrasies, the theme points out, is an entire world of such simple elegance that chortles to be seen and heard, but is neither recognized nor heeded to.
An interesting visual device in the film is the use of windows. Not just a use, but a splurge, come to think of it. Almost everything important happens in front of, around, or through windows. Could this be a metaphor perhaps for self-examination, for viewing one's life from the outside?
What I do not understand is why most films in this genre (Ice Storm, Ordinary People) end with a dramatically tragic finale. Does it take a shattering turn of events to break everyone out of their daily reverie? Something to think about.
Any rate, long story short: an evocative gem you need to own.
53 There is only one word for this movie..... PERFECT
I've seen a lot of Hollywood crap, and I was just getting sick of that whole movie industy when I happened to see American Beauty. I'm a story-line fanatic and I've seen way too many stupid blunders on most movies, but this one was just flawless.
It was absolutely perfect. In fact, the only camparable movie to this one was that Korean film, Old Boy.
54 Brilliantly written film...
I've read some of the other reviews, and they blab away the plot. I won't do that. What's important is that this is a first screenplay from Alan Ball, and he deserved his Oscar. Sam Mendes put it all in perspective, and brought a brilliant cast to fruition. A lot of this is about middle-age angst, but there are terrific insights about current young person's issues. Wes Bentley is wonderful, as is Thora Birch, and, later, Mena Suvari. The film really centers around Kevin Spacey and he deserved his Oscar. Some may take issue that Annette Benning should've won. (She lost to Hilary Swank, who was in almost every frame of "Boys Don't Cry")Phenomenal extra characters, and Chris Cooper was exceptional as Bentley's gung-ho military father (nominated for a SAG award). Peter Gallagher hasn't had as good a role since Altman's "Short Cuts". His scenes with Benning are amusing.The plot twists are plenty, and the ending already told at the beginning. The problem with the current DVD is that there were alternate endings, not included; and it would really be fun to find out other things might've been going on. The resolution was so open-ended, I'd love to see what Mendes & Ball had in mind as alternatives. Awards Edition? OK. A real edition? That might be fun.
55 In the great tradition of the authentic artistic films
Sam Mendes made his masterpiece to date following carefully the path of golden directors . Think in Billy Wilder to be exact.
Watch for the opening sequence. The camera is a butterfly who sets us in perspective with the voice in off introducing us to the center of the drama.
In this sense I inmediatly reminded Sunset Boulevard , but this secret homagge to that giant film is not a sin.
The script is amazing. It bretahes and allows laughing situations with Spacey and about him , beside the awful emotional crossroad he lives.
Andre Maurois told once : There's an age dramatic for the man , in which he is capable to raise the passion in a woman but not satisfying her *.
And this idea is involved in this film . Rapture images as the famous roses bed and the face of the teenager Angela Hayes (Mena Suwari) who plays the role of femme fatale , superb performance of Anette Bening and above all , the development of the secondary drama of the troubled officer , makes this film as the best dramatic film in many years ; and that means a great hope for those film makers who seem think that the special effects are fundamental in every film.
And this film is the best proof to deny that false premise!
56 A real winner film!
Sam Mendes and Kevin Spacey combined the best of their craft, to give us one of the most remarkable american films in any age.
Despite the fact that the movie starts as Sunset Boluevard (voice in off) with the camera softly setting in the house of our troubled man. Think about Lolita -the powerful film of the sixties - but beware, add it a fine touch of outrageous romanticism and a bit of eroticism in a bed of roses , and then we'll be witness of the inner conflict about a man who doesn't accept to get old . That critical age in wh’ch the man is able to raise a passion in a woman but he is unable to satisfy her.
That film is no mercy and so our disturbed man will be the fatal victim of the surrounding circunstances.
Dazzling script and superb performances.
The best work of Spacey to date.
57 Best movie in years
'American Beauty' might be the best movie coming out of the United States in the last ten years. Everything falls together in this great movie. The story is great; a man in his midlife crisis who quits his job, doesn't understand his daughter and reverts to puberistic behavior, but he loves it.
His wife is brilliantly played by Annette Benning. Especially foreigners who are living or lived in the United States will see the humor in her performance. She is so American that most American's will not see her little over-the-top acting which makes it great. And then of course Kevin Spacey who is great as Lester Burnham.
There are so many themes, so many characters. As he says in the end of the movie; they look normal from the outside but in fact they are not. And that's what this movie is about.
It might be a little strange to watch sometimes, or it can even make you ashamed of yourself but 'American Beauty' is one of the best movies in the subjects of midlife crisis, gayness, American society etc.
58 American Beauty
This is simply one of the most beautiful films ever shot. The intricate precision used in crafting each and every scene is flawless. Whether you liked this film or not, any serious film student should analyze every detail in this movie.
What makes this movie so likable, in my opinion, is its aray of unique and 'real' characters. So many films try to forget that we are all the 'hero' and the 'villian' in our own life story. Our perception of mean and hateful people are just as easily perceived as kind and joyful by other people in other situations. What we lack in our mundane everyday lives is the ability to understand and perceive the emotions and motives of other people. And this movie shows us that in a gradual, very subtle way.....then turns it up strong near the end just in case you haven't yet caught the message.
Lester Burnham was a man that finally discovered what life was all about. He broke out of his mundane world and started speeding toward all his hopes and dreams accomplishing so much along the way. At last when he understands what happiness really means to him....is when he truly achieved it. But there's hope to those who failed to see the important message in this movie; as Lester Burnham said, "If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry. You will someday." You can actually hear the smile in his voice.
59 This is a very good movie, but...
I'm not sure this is "best Picture" material. But hey, they gave that total piece of crap "Gladiator" best picture. Anyway, I like Kevin Spacey, but something told me I wasn't going to like this. I was wrong, I enjoyed this movie very much and I will buy a copy, it's good enough to watch over and over again. Bravo!
60 TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT AMERICAN BEAUTY
"American Beauty" is the story of Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a man unhappy in his home life, unsettled with the prospect of growing old and disenchanted with his career. Neither his wife, Carolyn (Annette Benning) nor his daughter, Jane (Thora Birch) respect him and his neighbors don't even know who he is. In short, Lester is a man swimming on the rim of a mid-life crisis. But the tide begins to turn in his favor when Lester decides to throw caution to the wind, blackmail his bosses and collect a hefty buy out settlement. Of course, Lester's new found independence does not sit well with Carolyn, who prides herself on being in charge of everyone's lives. To relieve her angst, she takes up with rival real estate agent, Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher) while Jane attempts a misguided elopement with her strange boyfriend, Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley). Of course all this upset leaves Lester free and clear to pursue a relationship with the high school trollop and Jane's best friend, Angela (Mena Suvari). What is so incredibly compelling about Sam Mendes' masterpiece of reflection, is not so much the way all these lives intersect on a crossroads ultimately doomed to destruction, but how ably the director has managed to capture a slice of the decline and fall of America's constitutional motto of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
The DVD transfer does a fine job of capturing the stylized color scheme. Colors are rich, bold and nicely balanced. Contrast levels are bang on. Blacks are deep and solid. There is a hint of pixelization that is more obvious during the darker scenes, but it does not distract from your viewing enjoyment. Fine detail is fully realized. Occasionally there is a hint of edge enhancement but again, it is not terribly obtrusive. The audio is 5.1 and delivers a very deep, rich bass, particularly in the music tracks. An audio commentary, featurette and stills gallery round out the limited extras on this disc.
61 What A Movie!!
I was blown away the first time I saw this film and have not been able to turn away from it since. The characters portrayed by the extremely talented cast in this movie were so real life that I was captivated by this movie until the end. A must see for any movie fan!
62 CINE 285k- IMOS- American Beauty
*AMERICAN BEAUTY
Lester Burnham: Kevin Spacey
Carolyn Burnham: Annette Bening
Jane Burnham: Thora Birch
Ricky Fitts: Wes Bentley
Angela Hayes: Mena Suvari
Directed by Sam Mendes/ Written by Alan Ball/ 120 minutes (Rated R)
BY ANDREW KOCH
Beauty: The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality. Although, society has put this definite and limited meaning into beauty, realistically beauty is indefinable. The simple fact that something is beautiful to one person yet ugly and ordinary to another makes it such an abstract concept. Yet, what is finite about is beauty is the idea that society tends to make a mold of beauty. This cast that is produced is the cause of much "shaping" towards an ideological goal and is the cause of much internal and external conflict between people, institutions and entities of all sorts.
In, "American Beauty" the theme of beauty is deeply rooted throughout the movie. The scenes switch frequently from character to character, through which we are introduced to and dig deep within each character's conflict in beauty. Angela, who represents superficial and exterior beauty, directly strives for her society's ideological
concept of beauty. To her, beauty is what everyone else tells her and what she sees on the cover of Maxim Magazine. Conversely, Jane Burnham represents the inner beauty within the characters of the movie. Genuine, open, loving, independent and not ready to follow society's guidelines on beauty. She does and wears what she feels comfortable in. Her personality and behavior represent this inner and innocent beauty not found often in "American Beauty". To Carolyn Burnham, beauty lies in the way she seems to all others whom view her (society or her friends and family). The illusion of "happiness, a successful job and being a perfect wife/ mother type" makes her feel comfortable that people view her as a beautiful person. As society shapes, views and impresses upon the character's beauty and concept of beauty, there exists one character independent of this obligation. He watches and judges beauty, of the women in particular, because it brings him a sense of inner peace. Ricky is independent of the judgmental societal panoptican (all seeing and always watching). He becomes a significant silent and panoptical entity himself in the movie. Whenever shown in the movie, he has his camera and is taping/ observing the beauty of women to things like the wind-carrying bag through the air.
The movie "American Beauty" is more than just another "black comedy" or typical Hollywood film. It moves past the portrayal of beauty through images, actions and looks. It explores and critiques the modern stereotype of what beauty is in women of today. It also explores the interactions and conflicts that arise within the clashing of different ideas of beauty between characters. More importantly, it forces the viewers to reflect upon the idea of inner/ physical beauty and how others view it, themselves and society as a whole.
63 Grrrls and Cinema Movie Review
American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes, is a brilliant film that invites us to "look closer" and examine the ideals of beauty. Jane Burnham and Angela Hayes are best friends who are on the cheerleading squad together. Jane is the "ugly," dark-haired gray-eyed sidekick to Angela, the blond-haired blue-eyed "beauty." Beauty is put under the lens when Ricky Fitts, Jane's neighbor, films Jane with his personal video recorder from his window. Angela embodies the stereotypical "perfect" female, so Jane isn't the typical object of affection and questions Ricky's feelings for her. Ricky shows the viewer through his eyes, his definition of beauty. There is not a single definition of beauty. It is our horizon of experience that shapes our ideals.
Caroline Burnham is the obsessive compulsive, whiny, housewife. She is the super female who works as a realtor and top dog in the matriarchal family driving the car and making the money. By contrast, the Fitts are the patriarchal, militant family under the command of Colonel Frank Fitts, who is abusive to his son Ricky. Their neighbors, the Jims, are a (...)couple living together. They have a very healthy relationship and respect each other and see each other as equals. Fascinating, how the most controversial relationship in society is the best functioning family of the three in the film.
64 American typicality
American Beauty is a film about the `typical' American family, with the `typical' husband and wife, daughter, and a white picket fence surrounding a beautiful rose garden. But, as is it stated below the title of the film, we must look closer. Kevin Spacey's character, Lester, is the husband, who works 5 days a week in his cubicle office space, who suddenly comes to a realization that his life as he knows it, isn't what he wants it to be. His wife, Carolyn, played by Annette Benning, is Lester's wife, who falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow, concentrates all of her time being the best at her real estate job, gawking after the `Real Estate King' Buddy Cane. Their daughter, practically ignored by both of them, suffering from lack of self esteem, with a friend who thinks the world of herself. This friend, Angela eventually becomes Lester's obsession. This `typical' beautiful girl, blonde, blue eyes, thin, puts on a front for all the world to see when she's really suffering inside. When a new neighbor moves in, the son of the household, Ricky, develops an interest for the family. He films them, and watches them, this panoptical character, who sees things differently than the others, intriguing the daughter of Lester and Carolyn. But within the family, we see how Lester objectifies Angela, he fantasizes about her, and somehow every fantasy is overflowing with red rose petals. This film however opposes the stereotype that the man of the house runs everything, because in this house the woman puts herself in charge, and pushes everyone under her. She craves power, and high status. Overall the film raises questions about `typical' family life, or anything `typical', and invites you to think about what is really important and beautiful in life.
65 ATTN Prof. Majer-O'Sickey
American Beauty is an interesting film. It critiques the stereotypes we Americans have of what is beautiful and what isn't. "Plain Jane" becomes the one seen as the true beauty, and the typical, gorgeous, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Angela is put in her place. I enjoyed the window scene when Ricky focused his camera on the reflection of Jane instead of Angela flaunting herself. This scene really made this theme resonate.
I liked Jane's character much more than Angela's. However, both of them define themselves by what men say. For Jane, Ricky was the one who made her feel like a woman. I wish that she could have had self-esteem on her own instead of needing a guy to give it to her. However, most of us women have the same issue, so it is realistic. I think we all know that Angela relied way too heavily on the opinions of the men around her to define herself as feminine. The biggest example is the scene at the end when Lester finally treats her as more than a sex object. She is taught by him to accept herself and like herself for more than her looks.
66 American Beauty: Look Closer
American Beauty, a film directed by Sam Mendes, is meant primarily as a commentary on the American ideal of lifestyle and it's vast difference concerning reality. The film's previews include the cath phrase "Look Closer," which prompts the audience to examine the film. The movie opens with a scene of the "ideal" suburban neighborhood, which is anything but that. On this street lives a gay couple, a couple in which the father is militaristic and the mother is suppressed to the point which she loses contact with the world, and the Burnham family. Outwardly, the Burnham family is living the American dream, big house, good jobs, and even a white picket fence. However, if one does "look closer" one would see that this is simply a facade perpetuated by Caroline, the Burnham wife/mother. She is perfectly groomed, has a (somewhat) successful career, cooks wholesome meals, and listens to elevator music at dinnertime. Through interesting plot development, Mendes destroys the stereotype and eventually Caroline.
Lester, the husband/father, is submissive to this scenario until his job is threatened and he snaps. Lester quits, obtains a job at a fast-food restaurant, begins to work out, begins an affair with his daughter's cheerleader-friend, and picks up smoking pot, and he's never felt better. Gone is our ideal father, replaced with a rebel rediscovering his youth.
Jane, the daughter, is out of touch with her parents. She is somewhat of a nonconformist and her contact with her mother destroys our notion of ideal mother-daughter relations. Caroline only speaks to Jane to acknowledge how proud she is that Jane hasn't "messed up" and to criticize Jane's choice of clothing. Jane is unsure of herself and very self conscious, she is not the happy-go-lucky teen of our dreams.
Also on this street lives Ricky, who views the world through his camera lens. He films what he considers beauty and serves as a representative of panopticon, or the view that we are always being watched. Through his lens Ricky films Jane, who eventually becomes romantically attached to Ricky and strips for the camera. Jane becomes the subject of Rickys's interest which although first is uninvited, soon becomes welcome. Ricky uses his camera to survey his domain, the new neighborhood, and to watch Jane. It is he who "looks closer," not only at the stereotypes but at the world itself, and finds beauty in it.
American Beauty not only helps us realize the futility of pursuing an "American dream" but also invites us to look closer at our own lives and to find the beauty within them.
67 Womens Studies 285C Final, Professor O'Sickey
The phrase "beauty is only skin deep" has never been more truthful in this drama about the layers beneath a small suburban family. Kevin Spacey dawns the role of middle aged, emotionally stunted father (Lestor Burnham), who is revitalized by his attraction to this rebellious daughter's best friend.. This film breaks the formula of the "perfect" family by showing that looks are definitely deceiving. From the initial image of a quiet street at the films beginning, to the eerie narrative of Lestor from beyond the grave, this film shows that nothing is what it seems. Rather, the viewer lulled into a false sense of rural bliss, then dropped on the ground of reality. The lives of the characters are not "peachy" and "picture perfect." Lestor Burnham's wife (Annette Bening) ignores the socially constructed idea of intrinsic domestic ability as she leaves her own home to indulge a sultry affair, as his daughter Jane (Thora Birtch) realizes that beauty is truly relative. This film takes the saying "you can't judge a book" by its cover and gives it a new spin.
68 Representation of women in film (Germ 241Final Review)
American Beauty invokes a relationship between women and society. The main women in the film are shown to the extreme ends of feminity and beauty. Caroline, Jane, and Angela all have different aspects they bring to the film and each one symbolizes the true nature of women in the world outside of film.
Caroline is a housewife trying to make a name for herself in the world of real estate. She is the modern American woman trying to play the role of the mother, wife, business person, and typical woman in society. However, she seems to be on her way to failure for all of them. Caroline is an over achiever and it tears her apart that she is not perfect. Her daughter Jane, however, prefers to exhibit almost no feminine qualities. Caroline sees Jane as trying to be the opposite of herself. She even asks, at one point in the movie, if Jane is trying to be unattractive.
Angela is Jane's best friend. She is the typical beauty with blue eyes, blond hair, and a thin body. Yet Angela is extremely unhappy and seeks the attention of everyone she comes a crossed.
Jane is the one that becomes the true Beauty in this film, though she does not dress or act the part. Her Beauty comes from being surveyed by the next door neighbor, Ricky. Though his eyes, we come to see the beauty in Jane, and the ugliness in Angela and Caroline.
The lesson learned here, is that one does not have to be perfect or thin or successful to be beautiful. One simply has to be seen. If only the outside world would come to such an epiphany.
69 American Beauty (Review for Germ241F @ SUNY Binghamton)
American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes, is a film about a white, suburbia middle class family and the different ways that each character perceives beauty to be.
Lester who is the protagonist of the film, is characterized as a middle-aged white male. His wife, Carolyn is a realtor, who is more interested in material things of life and obsessed with pruning roses, rather than having a normal relationship with her husband, whom she looks down upon. His daughter Jane is a young high school girl who feels insecure, and lacks self-esteem, which cause her to frown upon herself.
Jane's next-door neighbor, Ricky is used as a tool by Mendes to show us the beauty of everything in the movie through the lens of his camera. Ricky is the surveyor for the most part in this film because he is able to see things and people beyond just their outer surfaces. Ricky thinks that Jane is more beautiful than her best friend Angela, because he feels that beauty is not something that is artificial and is materialized on the outside, but that it is something much deeper than that.
This film also makes obvious to us that there are stereotypes present in this film, which are the stereotypical housewife of Ricky's mom, Barbara. Barbara is the kind of wife who will stay home and cook dinners, make you loads of breakfast in the morning, and do anything to make you happy. She seems somewhat repressed and in her own little world, this is probably because of her submission to her domineering husband. Due to this, we might think that she actually isn't in her real state of mind and don't know if this is really her personality.
Angela is thought to be a sexual icon in this film. She is the blond hair and blue eyes, picture perfect woman in this movie. She is afraid of people thinking that she is ordinary and dreams of becoming a model. Angela is being surveyed throughout the whole film and knows it, and so she becomes an object of society and what they want her to be. She doesn't mind being viewed, in fact she is very conceded.
70 American Beauty ...a review for WOMN285 @ SUNY Binghamton
In the film "American Beauty", Carolyn, Jane, Angela, and Barbara each portray a different stereotype of modern America. The ultimate question in the movie is what is beauty? What defines beauty? Is there one type of beauty, and if so , which one of these women is seen as most beautiful?
Carolyn, Jane's mother, can be interpreted as the typical American feminist, she provides for herself and her family through her reality job, but retains the traits of a typical mother, she is first seen pruning roses, and later performing household duties such as cooking and cleaning. Because Carolyn plays both the role of mother and modern working woman, it is at hard first to decide which category she fits in. However, due to her affair with another realtor, she moves out of mother and into a modern woman who is equal to men in every aspect. Carolyn's beauty comes from her love of beautiful things. She likes roses, expensive furniture, attractive clothing, and wants to present the overall feeling of beauty in relation to her family and home. To her beauty is more material and is along the lines of perfection.
Jane, Carolyn's daughter, is depicted as the average teen with the usual angst-ridden issues to deal with. She is on the school's dance/cheer team, a very stereotypical subject, but she also presents herself in baggy clothing, dark hair, and dark lipstick. Jane, playing the usual teenager, doesn't get along with either of her parents very well. To Jane beauty comes most importantly from the inside. She doesn't care what her appearance says to others, she wears dark, loose fitting clothing, and ignores her best friend Angela's criticism of her wardrobe. To Jane, Ricky, her next door neighbor and eventual boyfriend, is beautiful because he observes the world in nonconforming terms. For instance, Ricky believes that a floating plastic bag is beautiful, because he looks past the immediate response of "it's just a bag", and sees beyond into how that plastic bag moves and how it makes him feel. Jane is beautiful to Ricky, I think, because she is atypically beautiful, meaning that she strays from the ideals of conventional beauty, and lets her feelings and inner beauty show through her hair, clothing, and makeup.
Angela, Jane's best friend, is the perfect example of all-American beauty. She is white and has blonde hair, blue eyes, what would be considered a perfect body, and she is portrayed as a teenage vixen. Her concept of beauty is completely defined by outer, artificial beauty. She continually lectures Jane about her wardrobe choices, and prides herself on being physically beautiful, and theoretically the girl of every man's dreams. Her actions and personality however downplay her outer beauty because she's not very beautiful internally. In a particular scene, Angela and Jane are standing outside at school and Ricky approaches them, but only speaks with Jane. Angela is put off and confused by the fact Ricky didn't talk to her. She has a hard time believing that a guy wouldn't want her attention.
Barbara, Ricky's mom, is considered the typical housewife, although she has been so disillusioned from years of living with her military husband, that it is hard to tell if this is her true personality. Barbara's idea of beauty appears just be having her family fed and happy. There is a scene where Barbara is cooking a large amount of breakfast, and Ricky enters the kitchen. She seems to want to just fill up his plate and watch him eat all day. Her definition of beauty is simple, she wants others to be happy.
Applying John Berger's theory of the "surveyor/surveyed" to "American Beauty" can be thought of in a few ways. The obvious is every characters surveyal of beauty around them. Carolyn observes her flowers and her house. Jane surveys Ricky, and in turn Ricky surveys Jane and soon bases his entire thought of beauty around her. Angela surveys the physical beauty of others, and Barbara watches her family in order to see what they need and what will make them happy. The not so obvious is that each character surveys themself. They are both the surveyor and surveyed, criticizing themselves and comparing themselves to others. Each one is trying to find the true meaning of beauty, and what the characters find is that there are many different meanings of beauty, and no one fits every definition.
71 more than meets the eye
American Beauty is an example of director Sam Mendes' unconventional approach to film making. He takes Lester Burnham, played by Kevin Spacey, and launches him into the deepest midlife crisis, perhaps ever seen on screen. Spawned from a lusting over one of his daughter's, Janie's, played by Thora Birch, friends Angela, played by Mena Suvari, Lester finds himself in a new world. He blackmails his boss, becomes friends with the boy next door Ricky, who also happens to be Janie's love interest, buys a sports car, starts working out, and smoking pot. He has amazingly contradictory moods, as he goes from subservient husband to demanding his `proper' place in his family.
It is through Ricky's camera lens that Mendes' want us to see the beauty of everything in the movie. With Lester's obsession with Angela and society seeming to point out everything about her as perfect, one would assume she is what is supposed to be beautiful. However, Ricky's lens focuses on Janie. He sees her as beautiful, and makes her feel that way. The Roses in the movie show up every where in the Burnham household, and the vibrant color red as well, pointing out where Ricky's camera does not, that beauty is everywhere. There are roses in every room, in every scene whether people are fighting, or reflecting upon something. Mendes uses Ricky's camera as a tool to reveal the deeper meaning to things normal society may not see, such as Janie's beauty over Angela's.
While unconventional, Mendes does and excellent job at revealing the underlying power struggles and beauty in his characters lives. Between Lester's fight for dominance over his wife, and the strategic placement of roses this movie certainly portrays much more than it appears to just on the surface.
72 American Beauty a Review by A.McBride
American Beauty A Review by Ashley McBride
Throughout the film, the main question of "what is beauty" is prevalent. There are many answers that are offered throughout the course of the film, but what stands out the most is not the typical superficial answer offered by most Hollywood pictures.
Lester, the main character of the film whose life we as viewers follow undergoes a midlife crisis. The monotony of everyday life is unrelenting and causing complete atrophy of his potential as a human being. This is until he meets Angela the Hollywood answer to beautiful women, and a friend of his daughter Jane. To Lester, Angela is all that represents beauty. Ricky, a neighbor boy, develops a different definition of beauty; with his camera he can see the world in a different way. He falls in love with Jane, a less stereotypical beauty but a more genuine person. All the while, Carolyn, Lester's wi
