| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Movie Name | AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999) |
| Director | Sam Mendes |
| Writer | Alan Ball |
| Lead Actor | Kevin Spacey |
| Cast | Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch |
| Genre | Drama |
| Release Date | October 1, 1999 (United States) |
| Duration | 2h 2m (122 min) |
| Budget | $15 million |
| Language | English |
| IMDB Rating | 8.3/10 |
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AMERICAN BEAUTY explores contemporary moral misbehavior in hopes of understanding it. Those outraged by Eyes Wide Shut (and its erotic frankness) will likely be outraged again. This time the errant husband (Kevin Spacey) is depressed and unloved at home and work. He buys pot from the kid next door, quits his career to flip hamburgers and gets in shape as he fantasizes starting a sexual affair with a very available teenage cheerleader.
Once more it’s suburban misery, with the middle class portrayed (with some wit and bite) as decadent and bereft of faith, hope, love or success.
Lester and Carolyn Burnham (Spacey and Annette Bening) converse only on a high pitched, sarcastic Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? level. They are out of touch with their hostile teen daughter (Thora Birch). Carolyn is having a pathetic affair with a business rival whose marriage is also on the rocks, the drug dealing boy next door Ricky (Wes Bentley) is the unloved son in an uptight right wing family (ex-Marine father Chris Cooper is a paranoid, gun collecting homophobe).
Much of this angst is exaggerated life is not this bad. The mixed-up families are hopefully not a random sample of real-life suburbans, the movie’s only happy couple are Jim and Jim, the Burnhams’ gay neighbors.
We know Lester Burnham will not find real happiness by his retreat into adolescence and irresponsibility. But the tale is made bearable by some visual poetry and eloquence, as well as beautiful acting. In the end, a kind of rough moral justice is achieved.
Writer Alan Ball and director Sam Mendes (both movie first timers) reach for an additional redeeming note. Ricky is a camcorder fanatic who looks through his lens at everything and finds beauty behind the pain, a benevolence beyond everyday surfaces, suggesting “there is no reason to be afraid.”
The idea suggests grace and a purpose that transcend life’s cruelties. What’s odd is the logic of that sweet high note in this cynical film about sinners doing mostly bad things.
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