A glorification of the destruction of the American family.

Rating: 4/10 (14 January 2015)

Hollywood used to give Oscars to films of consequence, to films which ambitiously told stories of real people rising above strife and issues which touched the core of the world. But that was during the golden age of movie making when Andy Hardy's mother would smile simply because he asked for another piece of pie and Fred Astaire would gallantly guide Ginger Rogers around the dance floor. When movies about serious issues such as alcoholism, mental illness and anti-Semitism came in, one movie mogul apparently described it with the statement about realism, "So is diarrhea, but I don't want to see it on screen."
Yes, we can see through our daily lives that "focus on the family" is an overstated attempt by certain groups to diminish the realism that families do fail, and not with the help of the groups they don't see eye to eye with. In theatrical drama, this evidence goes back to some of the classics of the American theater, particularly plays by Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee, and those plays hold up strongly today because the elements of why those families were failing were better detailed. Even the black comedy "The War of the Roses" showed us the motivations behind the hatred, but all "American Beauty" does is show us that men are sex starved pigs, that women are bitches, that teenagers are messed up because of their sex starved fathers and bitchy mothers and that there's no hope for the future generation.
Certainly, this film is excellent as far as the acting is concerned, yet the characters are all extremely creepy and unlikable. Nobody plays creepy weirdos better than Kevin Spacey, and in spite of being that creepy weirdo, his character is actually somewhat understandable, albeit in a pathetic, you can't help but feel sorry for him sort of way. His lust for his nasty daughter's best friend is at first "ikky" to watch as is his obsession with getting out of the job that he hates with a high paid exit benefit package. Annette Bening is certainly great at playing neurotic bitches, and here she does so quite brilliantly with passive/aggressive gusto. She's quite sweet and somewhat phony with the gay couple next door, yet she turns on her husband with the venom of a cobra towards a mongoose. The sex scene she has with rival real estate agent Peter Gallagher is filmed with a lustful anger, as if what Gallagher is doing to her she is psychologically doing to her husband.
Thora Birch expresses typical teenaged bitterness and insecurities with the violent thud of an anvil being dropped from a skyscraper. She not only hates her parents, but is totally embarrassed by having them around, especially after a basketball game for which she is a cheerleader. Birch's character certainly doesn't have the personality of a cheerleader; In fact, on the court, she can't even force herself to crack a smile and just goes through the routine as if she was being forced at gunpoint to do what most teenaged girls would give their I-Phone (well, maybe not...) to do.
Mena Suvari, as her cheerleader pal, is probably the most complex character here, the typically self-centered supposedly perfect girl who actually is more insecure than she lets on. In one disturbing fight scene between Birch and Suvari, her vulnerability really explodes when Birch refers to her as ordinary. How many times has somebody longed to tell off the cheerleader type to try and break their spirit, and when it happens here, it really turns out to be sad. Wes Bentley is the new kid next door, the son of an ex-Marine (a truly scary Chris Cooper), forced by his dad to take a drug test every six months. But unbeknownst to the homophobic Cooper, Bentley has a secret life of his own, a hidden supply of drugs and an obsession with filming everyone around him without their knowledge.
Cooper's angry Marine is instantly incensed to find out that the neighbors two doors down is a male gay couple, but this homophobia hides something truly disturbing. Not only is there his obsession with Nazi memorabilia but his own underlying sexuality and abuse of his fragile wife (played with quiet strength by the always excellent Allison Janney). The lives of these characters intertwine to the point of an exploding volcano, a sinking ship without lifeboats, and really, the best escape from this mess turns out to be Spacey's fate. At two hours, this is a depressing and exhausting view of the messed up lives of humans too stupid to realize that they are responsible in most part for their inner destruction. After this was over, I felt as if I had been shot with a taser gun all over my body and needed extensive therapy just to recover from watching these people whom I hope never to know become more and more pathetic.