The Fall and Rise of Lester Burnham

Rating: 7/10 (1 March 2000)

I would suggest that the makers of this film have no real sense of irony. A shame, because if they did then maybe American Beauty would be a great, as opposed to merely quite good, movie.
During the first 90 minutes I was tempted to give this film an 8 or 9 (though not the 10 that a staggering 53% of voters have given it), but its final quarter made me drop this rating to a more realistic "7".
The picture is beautifully shot, as befits the title, with its imagery of pure red roses against the naked human body a cinematic high point. I must confess to being a little disturbed at seeing 17 and 21-year-old girls (though both presented as 16 year olds) having to perform topless shots, though not the elder Annette Bening, who keeps her blouse and bra on even for sex scenes. Okay, that's a knee-jerk reaction I admit, but seeing a virtual minor disrobing is a little disconcerting in a movie. Then again there is much about American Beauty that is subversive. Does this film contain the most prominent usage of cannabis on celluloid? There is no moral debate about its use; other than it makes you high.
It's hard to describe what the film is actually about, as it has so many themes and issues coursing through it without it ever feeling forced or scattershot in it's approach. The basic thread of a man's midlife crisis and the stoic nature of middle-aged suburbia is something that was memorably approached in the British sitcom "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin". Spacey doesn't end this film by faking his own death, though his wife (who is also undergoing a nervous breakdown) does have a tendency to scream in parked cars. The commentaries on the nature of beauty, death, sex and sexuality, commercialism and individualism are all well-noted, and it's worth the ticket price just to see Quantum Leap's liberal-but-macho Sam (Scott Bakula) as a homosexual.
But where it all falls down is in its need to constantly beat the viewer with its "issues". We are never allowed to make up our own minds about what is being played out on screen, there is no ambiguity or need for interpretation. This is a well-made, well-packaged film, and Spacey gives a career-best performance, but ultimately its agenda is billboarded throughout its duration.
This is certainly several steps up from the ham-fisted dictates of the similarly-overrated "Truman Show", but cinema-goers can enter the auditorium and switch their brains off for its two-hour run time. That's not to say that American Beauty is dumb - far from it. Just that every nuance, every satirical barb is spoon-fed with a saccharine coating so that no effort is required on behalf of its audience. The last few minutes conclude with an over-earnest justification from Ricky Fits (Wes Bentley), and Spacey wraps it up with a moral-of-the-story. It did make me want to take up weight training, though. Where's that bench press?