Some Oscar acting, but a thin, incomplete, cliche of a movie overall

Rating: 9/10 (9 October 1999)

Give Kevin Spacey his Oscar now, to avoid congestion next February and March. The directing and writing, though is a little more suspect. Something rang false in the set-up of the story, and the way the movie brought itself to the conclusion. But what, exactly??? I honestly don't pretend to know, but I'll make a guess.
Some of "American Beauty" is great. But there the family and the neighbors and the workplaces were "stock" elements from a recently emerged indie/reality/'Oh my God how daring' kind of movie making. Ten years ago they might have been revelations-- today they are cartoons of gut-spilling (as in spiritual and emotional exploration, etc.).
What was the point of much of it? And NOT in the academic sense, but rather to me as an audience member? My buttons were not pushed by most of the movie. Oh sure, "She was nasty," and "Gosh, that's quirky/interesting/arty, etc." But other than occasional voyeurism or revulsion, my own personal and actual emotional buttons were not pushed. Nothing meaningful in me was addressed-- again, not in some easily definable intellectual sense, but in a visceral, emotional way.
The director was taking the obligatory "chances" with the material, but very much like Spacey's character in the shower scene. The movie felt more like the Sunday afternoon ruminations of a stoned, self-indulgent, and frustrated young artist just getting over his first divorce than any kind of real mirror held up to the world.
The kid's sullen, the husband's a suppressed loser, the wife's become a hardened, dried out bitch. Duh. We've been churning that plot around and around since Rod Stieger's 1967 "The Pawnbroker." And these days that is such a cliche and such a common TV set-up that it is only unusual when a theatrical family ISN'T that way. And again, to what purpose? What's new here? Or even, what of what's here is being shown in a new way, or even a full and thorough way?
A lot is missing from this movie that I needed for it to have been personally meaningful. Oh yeah-- there were lots of great naked scenes, and a pretty effect or two with the rose petals (and for any Europeans or whatever not knowing this, American Beauty is the real, and well known name of the kind of rose depicted in the scenes. Such a clever, clever, clever play on words: Oh my God, the Art! Quick, somebody get my beret.)
American Beauty is like the emperor in the kids' story: The dishonest tailors utilize millions of dollars worth of the emperor's jewels and gold to make him a new set of robes. They steal the money, of course, but to hide their crime they tell the emperor, and his toadies at court, that the new clothes can only be seen be wise people. The emperor, not wanting to appear out of the loop, walks through town naked, pretending to be dressed in fine duds that he, of course, can see. Everyone is buzzing and applauding the emperor's new clothes, not wanting to appear unwise and uncool themselves. Finally an innocent little kid shouts out-- "Hey! The emperor has no clothes on. He's naked!" Then everyone wises up and sees the scene for what it is-- a naked guy who foolishly vaingloriously spent millions of dollars getting that way.
This movie, I think, might be naked. Or at least walking around in its underwear. But Kevin Spacey-- man, what a tremendous job! And the others-- good, too, but without a full movie to act in, their efforts are somewhat wasted. I gave it a "6."