The movie is about a man who is afraid of growing
older, losing the hope of true love and not being respected by the ones who
know him best. If you have never related to these things, then people will want
to take lessons from you.
The protagonist of the film is Lester Burnham, played
by Kevin Spacey, who is a man who is not loved by his daughter, ignored by his
wife, and superfluous at work. “I’ll be dead in a year,” he starts the movie
saying. “In a way, I’m dead already.” The movie is the story of his uprising.
We meet his wife, Carolyn, played by Annette Bening,
so perfect her garden shears are at the same level as her footwear. We meet his
daughter, Jane, played by Thora Birch, who is saving up for chest implants even
though she clearly doesn’t need them. Maybe her reason is not to attract more
men, but to make them feel pity for what they can’t have.
“Both my wife and daughter think I’m this chronic
loser,” Lester complains. He is right. However, they have their reasons. At a
terrible family dinner, Carolyn plays Mantovanian music that pokes fun at every
ration. The music is luxurious and reassuring, and the family is angry and
silent. When Lester criticizes his daughter’s behavior, she points out
correctly that he has hardly spoken to her in months.
Everything changes for Lester the night he is forced
by Carolyn to see Jane’s cheerleader performance. There in the gymnasium,
filled with a sub-Fosse tassel routine, he sees Jane’s high-school classmate,
Angela, played by Mena Suvari. Is it wrong for a man in his 40s to get
attracted to a teenage girl? Any honest man understands what a complicated
question this is. This is wrong morally, certainly, and legally. However, as
every woman knows, men are born with the feeling that goes directly from their
eyes to their privates, bypassing what their brain says. They can disapprove of
their thoughts, but they cannot stop themselves from having them.
Roger Ebert noted in his review, ““American Beauty” is
not about a Lolita relationship, anyway. It’s about yearning after youth,
respect, power and, of course, beauty. The moment a man stops dreaming is the
moment he petrifies inside and starts writing snarfy letters disapproving of
paragraphs like the one above. Lester’s thoughts about Angela are impure, but
not perverted; he wants to do what men are programmed to do, with the most
beautiful woman he has ever seen.”
Ebert continues, “Angela is not Lester’s highway to
bliss, but she is at least a catalyst for his freedom. His thoughts, and the
discontent they engender, blast him free from years of emotional paralysis, and
soon he makes a cheerful announcement at the funereal dinner table:” “I quit my
job, told my boss to **** himself and blackmailed him for $60,000.” Has he lost
his mind? Not at all. The first thing he spends money on is actually
understandable: a bright red 1970 Pontiac Firebird.
Carolyn and Jane are going through their own
relationship problems. Lester finds out Carolyn is cheating when he sees her
with her lover in the drive-through lane of a fast-food restaurant (where he
has a job he likes). Jane is being videotaped by Ricky, played by Wes Bentley,
the boy next door, who has a strange look to him. Ricky’s dad, played by Chris Cooper,
is a farmer Marine who tests him for drugs, taking a urine sample every six
months. Ricky plays along so nothing bad happens until he can leave home.
All of these emotions come together during one dark
and stormy night, when there are so many bizarre misunderstandings they belong
in a screwball comedy. Ebert notes, “And at the end, somehow, improbably, the
film snatches victory from the jaws of defeat for Lester, its hero.” Not the
kind of victory you’d get in a feel-good movie, but the kind where you prove
something important, if only to yourself.
Ebert noted, ““American Beauty” is not as dark or
twisted as “Happiness,” last year’s attempt to shine a light under the rock of
American society.” It’s more about sadness and solitude than about cruelty or viciousness.
Nobody is really bad in this movie, just made by society in such a way they can’t
be themselves, or feel joy.
Every performance walk the line between parody and
simple practicality. Thora Birch and Wes Bentley are the most grounded, talking
in the tense, flat voices of kids who can’t wait to get out of their homes. Carolyn
is a real estate agent who says self-help slogans, confuses happiness with
success – bad enough if you’re successful, depressing if you’re not.
Spacey is an actor who takes on intelligence in his
eyes and voice and was the right choice for Lester Burnham. He does reckless
and foolish things in this movie, but he doesn’t cheat himself: he knows he’s
running wild – and chooses to, destroying the future years of an empty lifetime
for a few moments of freedom. He may have lost everything by the end of the
film, but he’s no longer a loser.
This is definitely quite a comedy. You should see it
just to see what kind of film it is. Especially with that empty white plastic
grocery bag flying around. People who see this could relate to this type of
lifetime, but that is the beauty of it being a comedy. There might have been
those who have tried this before, and if you see it, you’ll know what I mean.
Next week, I’ll be ending “Kevin Spacey Month” with
another comedy from a great director that I saw earlier this year and I had
been hearing great things about. Stay tuned to find out because you will love
it, I promise you.
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