American Beauty ***
Rated on a 4-star scale Screening venue: Odeon (Liverpool City Centre) Released in the UK by UIP on February 4, 2000; certificate 18; 122 minutes; country of origin USA; aspect ratio 2.35:1
Directed by Sam Mendes; produced by Bruce Cohen, Dan Jinks. Written by Alan Ball. Photographed by Conrad L Hall; edited by Tariq Anwar, Christopher Greenbury.
CAST..... Kevin Spacey..... Lester Burnham Annette Bening..... Carolyn Burnham Thora Birch..... Jane Burnham Mena Suvari..... Angela Hayes Wes Bentley..... Ricky Fitts Chris Cooper..... Frank Fitts Allison Janney..... Barbara Fitts Peter Gallager..... Buddy Kane
Sam Mendes, the director of "American Beauty", has shot a glorious film about a man who gets a life; what a pity that the screenwriter kills the character off. On the basis of this horrible ending, I'm tempted to call the movie a thematic mess. But the rest of it is too darn involving. I guess I'll just say that it's great while it lasts.
The film is a study of two dysfunctional three-member families in suburban Connecticut. Mainly we follow the Burnhams -- Lester (Kevin Spacey), a depressive loser who writes mindless magazine copy and lusts after his daughter's best friend Angela (Mena Suvari), Carolyn (Annette Bening), a hideously perky estate agent whose vernacular of upbeat capitalist platitudes seems to have come from 1980s self-help tapes, and Jane (Thora Birch), a typically moody teenager. Just moved in next door are the clan Fitz -- Frank (Chris Cooper), a violent, homophobic colonel in the marine corps, Barbara (Alison Janney), his senile wife, and young Ricky (Wes Bentley), who makes vast sums of money selling pot behind his parents' backs.
These are, for the most part, people who refuse to face how disconnected and desperately unhappy they really are, clinging to societal labels and conventional ideas of propriety and beauty to convince themselves that things are going fine. Lester and Carolyn don't see themselves as a loveless couple working jobs they hate, but as productive middle-class earners. Frank would not stand to be called a bigoted psychopath, because he's officially an American hero, and he'd never admit that Barbara has gone batty -- after all, she performs her housekeeping tasks efficiently; she MUST be functioning perfectly well!
This sounds like ugly and depressing material, but Mendes doesn't try to evoke typical reactions of disgust from the audience; his camera holds back, viewing things from a sympathetic distance, emphasising the absurdity of situations rather than their scandal. We're invited to find both pathos and pantomime humour in behaviour that could have come across as creepy. Lester's infatuation with Angela is a perfect example -- just look at the scene where he's eavesdropping on her outside Jane's door, thinks she's on to him and darts away like a child who doesn't want to be caught misbehaving.
It is Lester's conduct throughout "American Beauty" which points to why this movie is worth seeing, whereas last year's "Happiness" was not. In that movie, the characters just sat and whined about their miserable lives -- here, Lester sees how easily Ricky gets on with life, and finds himself inspired to change, to be honest with himself after all these years of blackout. Even if you instinctively find more happiness in looking at a plastic bag than in buying a silk sofa, the kid quite reasonably points out, then why go to the trouble of pretending otherwise?
In taking stock of what's important to him, Lester quits his job, starts pumping iron and resolves to be frank whenever he speaks -- actions that, in practice, most people would think weird, and the signs of mid-life crisis. But they're healthy for Lester; he's starting to grow as a person. By the end of the movie he's rejecting Angela's sexual advances; at the beginning, he would never have had the self-control or even the opportunity.
Spacey is wonderful in this role. There is an enthused glint people get in their eyes when they begin to re-invent themselves -- he nails it. And pay attention, too, to the subtle way his voice and body language come across as sluggish at the start of the movie and become progressively cooler. There are several good performances in "American Beauty", but his is the standout.
It would have been a great film, too, if it had followed through on its ideas, and allowed Lester's character to develop even further. But instead he is shot dead -- which we're told is going to happen from the outset, but still doesn't feel right. The point of Lester's self-improvement is to show us how it's possible to wake up from self-delusion and embrace what touches us. Killing him off implies that life is meaningless, everyone might as well lead unhappy lives and there's no point trying to work ourselves out of ruts because we're all doomed anyway. As if this isn't bad enough, the final scenes of the movie turn into tacky murder mystery, and set up a series of preposterous misunderstandings to give the killer a motive. What a letdown.
But don't take my word for it. My view is in the minority, and "American Beauty" looks set to win the top Oscars, having been named best picture of the year by the Online Film Critics Society and at the Golden Globes. Me, I think it unfolds as a profound masterpiece, then collapses in a muddle of probably unintentional, certainly unnecessary pessimism. It's as if Aladdin had forgotten how to unleash the genie, gone nuts and used his lamp to burn himself to death.
COPYRIGHT(c) 2000 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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