Powerful Picture

Rating: 10/10 (28 February 2000)

Not surprisingly, most of the recent comments for American Beauty are more negative than positive. Unfortunately, many people are seeing this film in its re-release after receiving eight Academy Award nominations, and are setting their expectations tremendously high and being disappointed. (Also, there are the "I'm just too Bohemian to like any film that the masses like or the Academy chooses" people who leave negative comments for spite).
American Beauty is gorgeously shot, and all of the performances are top notch (especially Spacey and newcomer Wes Bentley). Most of the complaints revolve around the characters being too "stereotypical", and one comment said, "Are we to believe this is where American society is heading"? Heads up people, we are already there, and these "blatant stereotypes" are you, your friends, and your neighbors. Any person familiar with middle-upper class white America will find a morbid fascination in American Beauty, for the film presents a compelling, sordid, tragic tale that seems unlikely and dramatic - until you realize that you or someone you know is living it (or at least parts of it). The best joke in American Beauty is that people are urged to "look deeper" and are unable to abandon their expectations of a mind numbing, happy trip to the movies to see that they themselves could be the apathetic man in the middle of a mid-life crisis, the cold, career driven wife, or the homophobe who alienates his children. If you want a feel-good movie, go rent something with Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock in it. If you want a fascinating case study of just how bizarre but plausible life in modern America has become, American Beauty won't disappoint.