Feel good movie, backdrop of dysfunction

Rating: 6/10 (20 September 1999)

American Beauty starts out looking like a clever and humorous stab at dysfunction beneath a clean cut, suburban exterior. But looking past it's skin-deep treatment of hot topics like masturbation, drug use, pedophilia, adultery, violence, and death it winds up being nothing more than a "feel good" movie. It's ultimate message (delivered in the most unbearably heavy handed monologue I've heard in a while) is that if you appreciate the beautiful things in the world then you will make yourself happy.
The "good guys" in this movie are the people who became true to themselves like the Lester, daughter Jane, and boyfriend Rickie. The people who tried to be things they weren't, like the closet homosexual colonel, and dirty girl Angela, suffered. The characters were not "multidimensional" or realistic, as other comments have indicated, just caricaturized highly emotional stereotypes.
The numerous plot twists seemed to be completely unnecessary. There was no reason for Kevin Spacey to die other than to create shock value in the beginning and to get the audience to play "guess the killer" as the movie became less interesting later on. Similarly the Lolita subplot proved pointless and didn't go anywhere.
I am being hard on this movie because of all the acclaim it seems to be getting. Despite the story problems above, much of the beginning was hilarious and bold. It featured strong performances and good directing. Good movie, but not * great *.