sometimes shattering vision of American life

Rating: Null/10 (10 November 2000)

If you've ever wondered what life was really like in the Ozzie and Harriet household after the cameras stopped rolling, `American Beauty' might well afford you a good indication. Although this is certainly not the first glimpse into the dark underbelly of modern suburban life - films like `Ordinary People' and `Blue Velvet' long ago shattered any myths about the subject - `American Beauty' is clearly one of the grimmest and least compromising. Writer Alan Ball and director Sam Mendes paint a disturbing portrait of a family and a neighborhood in serious moral crisis. They transport us on an often painful journey to a world whose residents lead lives of quiet desperation cozily hidden behind the tranquil faÃ§ade of tree-lined streets, white picket fences and exquisitely manicured lawns and gardens - a neighborhood and, perhaps, even a family not too unlike some of our own.
In his Oscar-winning performance, Kevin Spacey stars as Lester, a 42-year old man suffering a major case of mid-life angst, stuck, like so many other men in his age bracket, in both a dreary, meaningless job and a dreary, meaningless marriage, in his case to a consumer-conscious wife whose personality has long since been drained of the passion and spontaneity that once defined it. Lester also has an alienated teenage daughter who suffers from feelings of worthlessness and a consequent inability to relate in any positive way to either her parents or the materialistic life they have made for her. Feeling utterly empty, Lester begins to become infatuated with his daughter's beautiful blonde schoolmate, an obsession that leads to pedophilic fantasies as well as tortured feelings of unrequited passion.
What is remarkable about the film is that Ball and Mendes don't concentrate merely on Lester's problems but manage to weave a full tapestry of suburban despair by shifting their focus to a wide assortment of other characters as well. Many of the secondary characters, who could easily have slipped over into stereotype or caricature, actually are allowed to breathe and develop in three-dimensional ways. Thus, we come to understand that, in her own way, Carolyn, Lester's wife, is just as unfulfilled as he is and just as unsure of how to cope with that bewildering situation. Jane, his daughter, is just a good-hearted kid who craves affection and moral guidance from parents who seem too self-possessed or too emotionally burnt-out to provide her with those needs. Like so many of today's youth, she suffers from feelings of inadequacy because she doesn't measure up to society's view of ideal physical perfection - her main goal in life is to undergo breast augmentation - and she really only wants to find someone who will love and accept her on a deeper, more spiritual level. This she finds in the form of Ricky Fitts, her strangely `different' next-door neighbor, a boy who spends his life filming his experiences and whose amazing self-confidence and self-assurance inspire others to label him psychotic and Jane to fall in love with him. Ricky is, perhaps, the most controversial element of the film because his blatant drug dealing never seems to come under any moral censure by the film's makers. After all, at least Lester eventually backs off from his planned conquest of Angela, the seeming nymphet, at the last moment. When he comes to the realization that Angela is really only a sweet, mixed-up kid, he envisions the psychological damage his exploitation of her would inflict - both on her and on himself. Therefore, before his demise, Lester discovers that he is not quite as morally bankrupt as he has led himself - and us - to believe. Angela also is revealed as a complex character, a girl so afraid of being `ordinary' that she devises an entirely fictional persona to present to a world that, ironically, really doesn't care about her anyway. In a way, Angela defines the theme of the film, in that it seems to suggest that there really is no such thing as `ordinary' in terms of human existence and that we all spend our lives in a fruitless attempt to achieve or at least replicate it. Of the entire cast of characters, Ricky's father, a homophobic, hardnosed ex-Marine, perhaps suffers from the worst case of just such self-denial and emotional repression. Thus, he becomes the device through which the final tragic outcome is eventually set into motion.
All involved - writer, director, actors, cinematographer Conrad Hall - deserve immense kudos for their moral courage and their technical expertise. Still, one begins to wonder if all these thoroughly dire views of suburban life are really any more true or accurate than the preposterously sunny portrayals of the 1950's. Isn't it possible that the truth may - as with all aspects of life - lie somewhere in between? `American Beauty' takes us to a particular place filled with a particular group of people. As a result, it is safe to say that, while it provides `a' vision of modern suburban life, it is yet to be shown that it provides `the' definitive vision. Like all great art, it offers only a part of the overall picture - but that part, in this particular case, is profoundly disturbing and truly unforgettable.