*** 1/2 (Out of four)

Rating: Null/10 (4 October 1999)

Sam Mendes' "American Beauty" is one of the most sumptuously saddening looks at suburban decay ever made. Although for my money it lacks the even-handed emotional resonance of Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm", "American Beauty" one-ups the previous film by trading the irreplaceably funny Oscar winner Kevin Kline for yet another irreplaceably funny Oscar winner by the name of Kevin, Mr. Spacey. Of course many Americans have seen Spacey chew the scenery in such dynamically lively roles as "The Usual Suspects", "Seven", "A Time to Kill" and "L.A. Confidential" without ever being able to identify him by name. "American Beauty" should remedy that situation right away.
Spacey plays put-upon advertising executive Lester Burnham, a man with a penchant for masturbating in the shower, "masking his contempt for the a****les in charge" at the office and sitting spinelessly at the supper table listening to the insomnia-curing dementia of Tin Pan Alley tunes preferred by his rigid realtor wife Carolyn (Annette Bening). Indeed he no longer communicates with his daughter Jane(Thora Birch), a rebellious young cheerleader playing a nondescript game of follow-the-leader with her model-wannabe colleague Angela (Mena Suvari). Of course Angela awakens Lester out of the apathetic hellhole he had been entrenched in before, and with the help of his new teen-age next-door neighbor Ricky (Wes Bentley), Lester tries to overcome his encroaching middle age through a cycle of working out, smoking pot and fantasizing of Angela in a heap of rose petals.
Ricky's life indeed is no picnic, as he tries to escape the demented militance of his ex-Marine father (Chris Cooper) through a gallery of videotapes which include everything from a dead bird to a plastic bag blowing gently in the breeze. Although labeled as an outcast at school, young Jane looks past the superficial ramblings of her "experienced" best friend and proceeds to look beyond Ricky's initial facade.
As framed by cinematographer Conrad L. Hall ("In Cold Blood"), "American Beauty" has the same falsely bright, almost dizzyingly surreal colors which have defined such similar films as "Blue Velvet" and "The Truman Show". Unlike those two films, however, "Beauty" doesn't try to evade its material through metaphor or Lynchian vision; instead, it stares unblinkingly into the lives of a group of people, each with their own little hang-ups. Indeed what forty-year old man wouldn't identify with Lester as he flips the finger to his malcontent superiors and shrugs off all responsibility in returning to that haven of simplicity, the fast-food chain? And who wouldn't admire the sheer combination of bravado and insight Ricky contains as he provides his inspiration for Lester? These identifiable characters form the core of Sam Mendes' debut film, an exquisite find which at times manages to expose an inherently mechanical processing behind its plotting through unbelievable shifts in logic. One scene in particular essays this (READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE!): Ricky's father sees what he believes is his son performing oral sex on Lester when in reality all he's doing is supplying him with pot. This is a low point of Alan Ball's screenplay, which sketches this character almost to the point of stereotype (were it not for Cooper's masterly performance, one would be inclined to write this mistake off as bigger than it is).
Yet this is one of the few flaws which periodically punctuate Alan Ball's biting screenplay. Although millions of Americans live in the suburbs even now, very few have the courage to admit their own narcolepsy resulting from such deceptive terms as "comfort". By the end of "American Beauty", Spacey's character begins to merit a sort of predestined glory which makes his inevitable destiny seem both heartbreaking and, finally,life-affirming.