AMERICAN BEAUTY

Lester speaks to us at the start of the film over a stunningly symmetrical shot of an average tree lined street, to inform us of his current plight and to tell his story.
He is trapped in a sexless marriage with his wife Carolyn (Annette Benning), who it seems, has given up on him and is devoted to her career. He is hated by his daughter Jane (Thora Birch) and is supervised in work by a man younger and more successful. In short, Lester is the American dream gone wrong, he is there but he is not; physically solvent and emotionally bankrupt. He is soon to discover that life can and should offer more. After meeting his teenage daughter’s best friend Angela (Mena Suvari), he begins to fantasise about her, visualising her lying on a bed of roses and bathing in rose petals. It is here that the direction gets completely carried away with the use of such heavy handed imagery which is embarrassingly over the top in it’s execution, although it is a neat tie-in to the title (American Beauty is a species of rose).
With this new-found lust for life, Lester begins to change things around by reverting to his youth and the lifestyle that made him happy, quitting his job, buying the sports car and listening to Pink Floyd. In a complete break with the reality of his humdrum existence, he gets a job in a burger bar, where he has zero responsibility and he loves it. (Interesting that this film was made at the end of a decade in which people refused to take responsibility for their own problems and life situation, where the growth of pop-psychology makes us blame anyone but ourselves for whatever has gone wrong and for bad choices made.)

The performance of Kevin Spacey in American Beauty is beyond comparison. His sheer intensity and authenticity confirms his status as one of the finest actors of his generation and sees him take over from Michael Douglas as the poster boy for male angst, in a role that is guaranteed to see him Oscar nominated. His character is the narrator, we see deep in to his sexual fantasies, we see him transform his life and in short, the film is him. Annette Benning gives a terrific performance as Carolyn, however she never ventures in to the realm of believability due to some huge contradictions in her character’s depiction, which essentially reduce Carolyn to a mere caricature.
The handling of the love story between Ricky and Jane is excellent and portrays teenagers in the era of crass and crude films like American Pie, as sensitive intelligent figures with a lot more going on than the obvious sexual issues. They also manage to avoid the ridiculous self-analysis and false lucidity and articulation as portrayed in Dawson’s Creek for example. There is however no attempt made to explore the collapse of her relationship with her father.