"American Beauty" (1999) 3 1/2 stars out of 4. Starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Chris Cooper and Peter Gallagher. Directed by Sam Mendes
Lester Burnham is going through a midlife crisis. Correction. Lester Burnham is a walking, breathing midlife crisis, a tragedy in waiting.
He hates his job, is distant from his wife and daughter, has no interests, no friends, no passion. The highlight of his day is masturbating during his morning shower.
Lester is invisible. He gets no enjoyment out of life nor does he give any.
That all changes though when Lester sees Angela (Mena Suvari), his high school daughter's best friend. Quicker than you can say Lolita, Lester has found a purpose in life.
He decides to buff up, take stock in himself, become a new man, all to impress a teeny-bopper.
Thus is the crux of "American Beauty," a disturbing, sad and funny look at a dysfunctional family trying to fool itself into believing its a living a normal American middle-class existence.
"American Beauty" is an actor's movie. Forget the plot and subplots, as interesting as they are. What sticks here are the performances. Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening are mesmerizing and daring as Lester and Carolyn Burnham.
He's a burnt-out copy editor for a magazine, she's a gung-ho wannabe real estate agent. They have as much in common as Jesse Helms and Chastity Bono.
They don't communicate, they bark, snarl and snap.
Spacey starts out shuffling around like a schlep. He doesn't walk, but drags himself painfully through his daily existence. As his focus narrows and his mind becomes more set on his courseof action, he becomes more confident in tone and stride.
It is fascinating to watch this transformation. It is Academy Award-caliber acting. It is imaginative and smart because through it all, Spacey keeps in character. He makes it so casual, so matter-of-fact, that you don't question his re-emergence into the land of the living.
Bening's Carolyn is a woman who refuses to be dragged down into the muck of dispair that is sucking away her husband's soul.
She fights to remain the optimist, scrubbing and cleaning the property she is trying to sell, then slapping herself out of discouragement after an open house from hell.
Caught in the middle of it all is the Burnham's daughter, Jane (Thora Birch), who can neither understand nor cope with either parent.
Birch also gives a compelling performance as a confused adolescent who cannot grasp the vacuum between her parents. Like most teen-agers, she is self-absorbed with her own wants and needs, repelling any attempts at communication from either parent.
Doom hangs over the Burnham household like a smog over Los Angeles.
Yet for all its tragic undertones, "American Beauty" actually has you laughing. But sometimes it's that embarrassed laughter, the one that comes out when you see someone take a fall or walk around with his fly unzipped.
"American Beauty" is not a perfect film. Writer Alan Ball has created a couple of quirky characters too many, especially Chris Cooper's Marine Col. Fitts, a send-up stereotype that could have come from Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket." His character doesn't seem to fit and when he is on screen, American Beauty goes a bit a-kilter.
Fitts' son, Ricky (Wes Bentley), first appears as a creepy peeping Tom, secretly recording life in Burnham household, with special emphasis on Jane.
But Ricky, despite dealing drugs, turns out to be - normal is not the word - but moral and decent.
Director Sam Mendes has done a masterful job with his cast. He has taken extraordinary situations and what could have been over-the-top characterizations and molded them into people you may not understand, but could at least symphathize with.
"American Beauty" is an original, a tour-de-force exhibition of acting missing from the movie screen so far this year.
When Academy Award nomination time rolls around, "American Beauty" is a movie that will not - should not and cannot - be ignored.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, IN. He can be reached by e-mail at bloom@journal-courier.com or at cbloom@iquest.net
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