Good-Not Great

Rating: 9/10 (4 February 2001)

American Beauty is a good film whose reputation has gotten way out of hand and whose quality and artistic merits have become far too overrated. Yes, it is better than a lot of movies out there, but it is not the masterpiece that everyone seems to think. It was not the best film of 1999, nor did it deserve all the hype, awards, and attention that were bestowed upon it.
Its story and themes aren't anything original or shocking, and all the great weight and meaning that it thinks it has are much more hollow and shallow than it wishes to believe. Suburban, white-bread America isn't perfect? You're kidding me! American Beauty is a glossy Hollywood satire that has the usual Hollywood ego of thinking it is an artistic masterpiece. It is well-written - there are some funny and beautiful moments, not badly directed, well photographed and scored, the acting is sincere, I think, and everyone involved seems to have good intentions, but, at the end, it doesn't add up to as much as it aspires. It was better the first time I saw it when it was called The Ice Storm, or the other time when it was called Ordinary People (Best Picture 1980), or the other time when it was called The Graduate, or the other time as Rebel Without a Cause.
Aside from the fact that it is just retreading some of this old material, there were a few other things that bothered me. One of the major drawing points is all the fetishized female teenage sexuality; this and all of the unnecessary nudity bothered me - these are teenage characters, after all - it's uncomfortable the way in which they were sexualized and objectified. Also, aren't we past the point as a society where the psycho ends up being the repressed homosexual? Also, Kevin Spacey's highly acclaimed performance consisted of being sarcastic for 2 hours. He's been much better in other films that required a greater range of his dramatic skill. Finally, what's the point of telling us at the beginning that Lester is going to be killed? Don't tell us, and let the end come as the shock that it could have been.