Plenty of films in the past several decades have put the lives of people living in suburbia under the magnifying glass to reveal their hidden, less-desirable qualities. But few movies have done it with the strange subtlety and style as American Beauty. The screenplay was written by Alan Ball, a favorite among many, and the story he wrote can essentially be described as whittling down characters to a textbook consistency, then throwing them all together in one neighborhood.
Kevin Spacey is Lester Burnham, 42-year-old, self-proclaimed “loser” who works a job he finds less than fulfilling, only to come home to family who doesn't appreciate him. Lester finds this understanding though, as he himself recognizes the life he leads isn't an admirable one. His wife, Carolyn, (Annette Bening), is a textbook case of a success-obsessed monster who takes Lester down a peg at every chance, and does so with chipper gusto. Their daughter, Jane, (Thora Birch), is a textbook case of teen angst, and would like nothing more than separation from her unstable parents.
I would distance myself too, because once Lester gets one look at Jane's textbook case of a foxy friend who brags about all the guys she bangs, Angela (Mena Suvari), he does a terrible job at hiding the old-man crush he gets. This crush triggers what could best be described as a textbook mid-life crisis; he buys the muscle car, smokes pot, starts exercising, listens to The Who and very eloquently shifts jobs from a cubicle at an ad agency to a fryer at a fast-food restaurant. In short, Lester goes on a mission to reassert himself as a man devoted to living life to the fullest however he so chooses. This involves buying pot from the neighbor next door, Ricky, (Wes Bentley), a textbook weirdo who lives under the close watch of his former marine father, a textbook case of a homophobic, testosterone titan (Chris Cooper) who has done nothing if not broken down his wife into a shell of a human.
Because of the employment of characters so cliché, some viewers might find many parts of the film super contrived. And they would be correct. The film ramps up the cheesiness level in many of its scenes; one of its most notable moments is when Ricky and Jane watch one of Ricky's many video-taped recordings. This particular one is of the time Ricky taped the most beautiful thing he's ever seen ever in the history of the world: a plastic bag floating willy-nilly a few feet above the ground. He of course cries as he describes how beautiful he finds it, and Jane takes his hand to comfort him. It's an intimate and uncomfortable scene but goes to show that if one looks at this movie through a slightly tongue-in-cheek lens, it all for the better.
It goes without saying that the director, Sam Mendes, is a master at captivating an audience during even the most stagnant of moments. And he gives the script the space it needs to breathe during the dinner-table scenes with quiet intensity. Teaming up with Alan Ball, who seems to only know how to write captivating material, is unsurprisingly an equation that will equal greatness. What's better: Thomas Newman was hired to write the score for the film, which is a key in this film to establishing the ebb and flow.
Once the third act hits, the characters begin to derail, and shed their textbook qualities. For some characters it's ugly, for others it's cathartic. The constant here is that everyone realizes who they are by the end, for better or for worse; the characters themselves realize they aren't one-dimensional, or at least, unleash the second dimension they knew they had at full-force. However, keeping with the theme of the movie, the ugly ending is hardly something you'll wish to turn away from or forget. It's a tremendous film in which all elements came together succinctly and near flawlessly.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
There are a couple trailers, a behind-the-scenes featurette with interviews from the cast and crew, including Steven Spielberg. There's a great feature commentary by Sam Mendes and Alan Ball. And interestingly, a storyboard presentation with Sam Mendes and director of photography Conrad L. Hall, in which they go over the film's storyboard illustrations versus their respective scenes in the film. It's more in-depth commentary on a film that deserves as much commentary as possible.
"American Beauty" is on sale September 21, 2010 and is rated R. Drama. Directed by Sam Mendes. Written by Alan Ball. Starring Annette Bening, Chris Cooper, Kevin Spacey, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley.
