All my perceptions were turned on their heads by the end

Rating: Null/10 (27 September 1999)

I sat through two thirds of this film thinking "sure, Kevin Spacey is fantastic; the story is interesting and the writing clever -- but why do I need to spend two hours with these detestable characters?" For me, a movie has to have some reason for existing, and if "American Beauty" had only showed us that "beneath the surface of suburban life there's something dark and creepy" the movie would have been stylish, well-made -- and completely unoriginal. The opening lines spoken by Jane intentionally lead you down that path -- and then the final half-hour to 45 minutes turns everything you thought you knew upside down. Ultimately it's about redemption, which is always a favorite theme of mine in movies.
As the closing credits began to roll, for the first time in my movie-going life I involuntarily spoke. I couldn't help it, the word "wow" just popped out before I even knew I was going to say it. For an overly analytical, mentally-rehearse-everything- twenty-times-before-you-say-it-out-loud type like me, that was pretty odd.
Finally, I would like to say something that is not a comment so much about the movie, but about the way some reviewers (on this site and elsewhere) are looking at it. There's this elitist attitude in some people that says "if the masses can understand it and enjoy it, then it can't be worth anything." I believe this viewpoint comes from a critic's underlying lack of confidence, his or her need to be superior to the "great unwashed." Wake up people -- art was meant to be savored by many people, not merely tasted and then spat out by the cognoscenti. I am not yet sure whether "American Beauty" was great art or just a masterful imitation of it -- but it made me want to see the film a second time to find out, which isn't true of very many films these days.