what a letdown..

Rating: 4/10 (11 May 2000)

After all of the awards and hype the only thing I found appealing about American Beauty is the screenplay by Alan Ball. I think this film is highly over-rated and other films more deserving of the Best Picture Oscar (perhaps Fight Club).
Yes, yes, Annette Benning was excellent, in fact the whole cast was superb. But, this is no cinematic masterpiece. The story of the dead, strange, suburban husband telling the story of his late/recent life is humorous and has some intriguing moments. I enjoyed many of the scenes but it seemed the film lurched from good to bad in moments and lacked the continuity that it was pretending to enjoy.
Spacy getting an Oscar for this performance is unacceptable. He was good, he always seems to outshine the material, but please (again) this performance is highly overrated.
Maybe I need to watch it again to fully understand the reason/reasons the film was so highly touted.