Take *Shawshank Redemption* and *Forrest Gump* and combine them with great films like *Godfather II* and *Amadeus*, and you have the most uplifting great film of all time...

Rating: 10/10 (29 February 2000)

I cannot express how great a masterpiece this film was. It's at once uplifting and emotional, visceral even, while still being a great film with great cinematography and a great script. I once took a film course at a prominent liberal arts college, and *American Beauty* is easily the equal of any of the 25 classics we explored.
Now that I've used the word "great" so profusely, let me tell you why. The script and its character-driven subplots aren't stereotypical, as some have demurred; rather, the characters are believable archetypes, true to real-world people most of us have known. We can see truths in Kevin Spacey's portrayal of a man romanticizing his youth and lusting after its symbol, Mena Suvari as the cheerleader who looks like a 16-year-old wearing too much make-up in the belief that it makes her appear more mature; we can see truths in Ricky's lust for life and attempts to "capture" its essence--it's beautiful how Ricky, the quintessential outcast "crazy" and "loser," is through his understanding of death the only person in the film who understands the meaning and beauty in life. Reminds me of the poet Wallace Stevens' writings, in which "Death is the mother of beauty"--i.e., the transitoriness and ephemeral nature of everything is what gives it beauty.
Ultimately, this film has a powerful philosophical voice speaking in harmony with delicious imagery of the beautiful--from Mena Suvari's supple bare adolescent breasts to the changing seasons you see in the trees, from rosepetals and flesh to the not-so-obvious beauty of a dead bird. The most striking image is perhaps the confining suburban sameness of hundreds of identical houses and streets in a grid which we see at the start of the film--but most striking is that, as the camera pans out over that same suburban sameness at the end of the journey, it kind of looks beautiful, no longer oppressive, and peaceful. Only a truly powerful film could subvert that image so completely.
The acting performances were also incredibly strong, which is important because above all this film isn't about imagery as much as it's about people and their relationships. There's almost a pantheistic feeling to the film, in that happiness is found only by communing with the world around you, and loving your fellow man. I am the type of person who lets a few tears slip when I see or read something truly moving, which is seldom; certain parts of the Bible and the Tao te Ching bring a tear to the eye; Alanis Morissette as a joyful God who childishly plays in the grass in *Dogma* brings a tear to the eye; but three times, at the bag-dancing climax in the middle, at the sight of Mena Suvari almost in tears by the moonlight, and at the surprise anti-climax at the end, three times did this film affect me that much.
To sum up, if this film doesn't affect you, you probably don't understand its subtexts and its truths. If it doesn't, please watch it again and try to understand what it's like to be in these positions--which are very common ones--and to see the beauty of the imagery here and the philosophy depicted. It's rather like *Eyes Wide Shut* in that you either *understand* the film viscerally, or you just can't see its truths; but *Eyes Wide Shut* is about things most people won't understand unless they're middle-aged men, while *American Beauty* is more universal in its scope.