Truly extraordinary

Rating: 10/10 (15 July 2004)

If you haven't seen this film then you will never understand the middle class. Coming from a middle class background, I was astonished by how real this film felt. This film is actually quite shocking in the way it depicts life in the American suburbia.
I'll start with Lester. I don't know much about guys his age (which is probably a good thing) but I've got to admit that he does seem to be very ordinary. Bored, sedated and unsure of where he stands anymore in life, he sets out to do what my philosophy teacher is always trying to tell us: live life to the max. Kevin Spacey is a complete success as Lester Burnham and I hope to see more good turns from him in the future.
Caroline is just damn scary. Scary because she is completely out of touch with the real world. Scary because of her over the top perfectionism. Scary because she believes that she is not blind. Such people are best avoided or you will end up with a lot of trouble and a lot of pain. After seeing American Beauty I was actually proud that my parents are nothing like this. They're fussy, but at least they've got their eyes open most of the time, and therefore fussy about healthy things.
As for Jane, Ricky and Angela, this is the first time I've seen good acting from teenagers. Usually I'm never impressed by actors who are close to my age, mainly because they seem to either try too hard or they don't make any effort at all. Here though, I'm actually drawn in by them. I hated Caroline, which is why it makes me laugh to hear that Angela doesn't think much of her either because she's a "phoney". I don't hate Angela too, I just feel sorry for her narrow mindedness and lack of ambition. As for Jane, as normal as she may seem, there's a hidden side of her that seems to be unexpressed. She's not a freak, as she labels herself, she's just different from Angela. Good for her. And there's Ricky, who films all the incredible moments that life throws at us, trying to find the benevolent force that he saw in a bag dancing with golden leaves, learning to see all the beauty that most of us will never notice.
There's an interesting thing about all these characters. Lester loves his daughter and tries to look out for her when he can. And yet he buys weed off her boyfriend. Caroline tries to create her image of success even though she doesn't have any success at home or at her job and is dependent on her affair with someone who does have success for any fun out of life. Jane tries to appear normal, by being a cheerleader, hanging around with Angela, even her non-striking appearances. But it doesn't suit her. Ricky is a very strange person who films inanimate objects, but the things he sees most clearly are human beings. And Angela, no matter how much she says that there's nothing worse about being ordinary, is being completely self-contradictory and she is probably the most ugly person I've ever laid eyes on who was meant to be beautiful.
So I'm not too sure who the American Beauty is, if it even exists. Or even if there is such a thing as beauty. Hmm...