Depressing, but brilliant

Rating: Null/10 (11 November 2000)

Modern America as dystopia.
AMERICAN BEAUTY is quite painful to watch, because it is so brutally honest, and there is not much effort made to make the characters likeable. Several of the characters are intentionally empty, generic; they speak blankly and in cliches. And they are all selfish. Selfish, self-important, perpetually insatiable, and unhappy. It is "me-centred" living that makes them so. Only when characters really begin to care about others, and when others care about them, do they begin to feel happiness again. The message is presented well, not at all in a schmaltzy manner...all this and they even managed to include a pseudo-happy ending without destroying the point made elsewhere in the movie.
Painful to watch, yes, and yet still one cannot help realising that what he is watching is brilliance. Brilliant writing and a very interesting directorial interpretation and style. To witness it is worth the pain, at least once. Would I watch it again? Well, not if I were in a very giddy mood, and not if I were in a very depressed mood; this is not a good choice to watch if you are very emotionally charged. Perhaps if I were in one of those rare, very calm, eye-of-the-storm moods, I would enjoy watching it again. Regardless, however, this is one film that will stay with me for a long time.