Summary: A Beauty so many fell for.........

Rating: 2/10 (10 February 2001)

I went to bed after seeing this film with a rather confused feeling: I was unsure as to whether to assess the film from a purely intellectual point of view, or from a more mundane attitude, that is, to judge it for what it was rather than what it might have purported to be. Or perhaps I just thought I had missed something as it just did not seem to be worthy of five Oscars, or even one if you push me. I mean, what do you have? A rather ordinary family living a rather ordinary if disfunctional life with a rather hysterical mother/wife failing as both, who could not sell a pair of socks in a street-market, let alone real estate; added to which we have an even more disfunctional family as new neighbours with a son who makes a lot of money selling dope and filming anything and anybody and a father who is a right jerk. Most of the dialogues sounded wooden; there was no naturalness; it all came out very much too rehearsed.
I fear the myth-making Hollywood tradition has fed us pseudo-intellectual interpretations or reading between the lines in that great endeavour to create a cult movie; but this time it just does not come off; this film is a howler; only the most naïve could possibly swallow the supposed greatness to be found here.
Whether this film could possibly be indicative of normal American family situations (which would mean that the USA is very sick indeed) or whether real people out there can really identify with such characters and situations (which would also indicate the same thing), is totally beyond me.
A message to those who organise the Oscar charade: if there are not enough good pictures to give Oscars for, leave them void instead of showering them on films which are just not worthy of them. American Beauty is a beauty: it has kidded a whole lot of people. But remember, you can't fool all the people all the time; you can only fool some of the people some of the time.
Having said that, I might just run down a few of the commentaries for this film; I never do so before writing my little piece for any film.