John Cheever...now on film!

Rating: 10/10 (16 June 2006)

After reading some of John Cheever's short stories in my Lit Class, my professor recommended that I watch this movie because it reflected similar themes of suburban banality and the resulting discontent embodied by some suburbanites.
American Beauty is one of those movies that you watch and, though some of the lines and actions are a bit contrived, for the most part you know that this is the stuff life is made of. The misunderstandings, the frustration, the doubt, the pressure of perfection, the fantasies...
John Cheever's short story The Country Husband is about a suburban man who is slowly feeling his energy and life slip away, bored out of his mind by the parties his wife forces him to attend and his pathetic job. He then falls in love with his children's babysitter and fantasizes about her almost constantly. These themes of boredom and frustration are expertly portrayed by Kevin Spacey.
Indeed, American Beauty is a very artistic sort of film (despite having been parodied in Not Another Teen Movie) and leaves you feeling understood and completed. The truth depicted in this movie is almost terrifying to behold.