American Beauty ****
rated R DreamWorks SKG 122 minutes starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Peter Gallagher, Chris Cooper, Allison Janney, Scott Bakula, Sam Robards written by Alan Ball directed by Sam Mendes
You know how sometimes you don't realize how great, or beautiful, a moment is until it has completely passed you by? You know how we all strive and push ourselves to live out those moments and becomes overwhelmed by them? Is personal beauty so unattainable that we can spend our whole lives just searching for a perfect facade of it?
In the unforgettable "American Beauty", the first film from acclaimed stage director Sam Mendes, these statements and questions are presented with such honesty and skill that the concept of filmmaking is almost reinvented. We are there to witness the downfall of a seemingly normal American family, and we are there to try to learn from their mistakes.
Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) isn't a bad guy. But as we learn through his opening narration, he lives in a nice house in a small town, and within a year he will be dead. His marriage to real estate agent Carolyn (Annette Bening) is almost nonexistent, and his rebellious teenage daughter, Jane, (Thora Birch) hates him. One day, after resolving to spend more time with Jane, he meets her ambitious, sexpot best friend, Angela (Mena Suvari). As Lester puts it, after seeing her he felt like he had just awoke from a long coma.
In fact, Lester begins to rebel against his "perfect" suburban society, and starts to make a lot of changes. He quits his boring job, threatening to blackmail his boss about a fling with a prostitute, if he doesn't get a year's worth of pay. He smokes dope with Ricky (Wes Bentley), a teenager who just moved in next door. And he finally starts speaking his mind, about everything from his marriage to his masturbation to his lust for his daughter's best friend.
Meanwhile, Carolyn is doing some rebellion of her own. An obsessive workaholic, she starts sleeping with her competition (Peter Gallagher), the king of real estate. She, however, lets her urge to "not be a victim" take control of her (and eventually her husband's) life.
But it is Ricky, the aforementioned boy next door, who takes control of the film. He is a drug dealer who carries his videocamera with him wherever he goes. When he moves onto the block, he films the Burnham's darkest secrets, and is fascinated by them. Meanwhile, Jane takes a liking to him. His abusive father (Chris Cooper), a General in the Marines, once locked him up in a mental hospital because of his dope habit, and doesn't know what is son is up to.
Ricky likes Jane because she isn't ordinary. He tries to show her that the world is full of beauty that we tend to turn away from. Angela, Jane's friend, wants to be a model because she believes that she is beautiful, but Jane realizes what the audience has known all along. She is a seductive bitch. As "American Beauty" builds up to its final climax, we realize just how well drawn each character is.
"American Beauty" so completely blew me away, that it's hard to coherently put into words just what the film is like. It is a flawless black comedy in which you are afraid to laugh. The film explores themes that have been studied in "Blue Velvet", "The Ice Storm" and "Pleasantville", but first time director Sam Mendes and first time writer Alan Ball are trying to show us something we may have seen, but never really opened our eyes to.
The hardest part of dissecting "American Beauty" is picking out the best performance. Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening have never been better, while Thora Birch and Mena Suvari are incredible as the most fully realized teenage characters in years. Chris Cooper is amazing in yet another choice role for one of America's finest character actors, but even he is not the best. Wes Bentley, whose only previous role was a line or two in "Beloved", is captivating and mesmerizing. He brings such life and knowledge to his role that a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod should not be far off.
"American Beauty", distributed by DreamWorks SKG, is far and away the best film of the year, and definitely one of the finest films of the decade. After seeing this film (and you must do so as soon as possible) you may wonder how two first time filmmakers could handle such a project. Well, I think that like Lester Burnham, these two were free to realize their own respective creative visions, rather than worrying if the film would be better than their last.
"American Beauty" is a film about lust, dysfunction, voyeurism and murder. However, the title is all the more pertinent every time I think about it. I've been waiting a long time for a film like this to totally sweep me away. Not a frame of film is wasted in this triumphant classic; a film you must see to truly believe.
a review by Akiva Gottlieb, The Teenage Movie Critic akiva@excite.com http://teenagemoviecritic.8m.com
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