fantastic soundtrack, brutally honest, dark humor

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2004)

I have grown so weary of movie critics lambasting American Beauty for all of its 'flaws'. This movie is a brutally honest, smartly written, dark comedy/tragedy that ends with a twist (see The Sixth Sense). I have yet to see a movie where young actors so easily share scenes with veterans. I disagree with the writer, Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe, that AB has not ''aged well" over the years. I recently watched American Beauty with friends and I laughed as hysterically as I did in 1999. The characters walk a fine line between parody and realism, which is one of the many components that makes the movie so engaging. Viewers can relate to Lester and all of his flawsâ€”in a general sense. Unfortunately, in my opinion, too many viewers become hung up on or cannot look past the specifics of his character (i.e. the Mena Suvari infatuation), which is unfortunate because the movie explores so many other interesting stories of imprisonment, loneliness, beauty, denial, anger, and aging. Two of my favorite lines from the movie: 1) "You are SO busted." 2. Kevin Spacey begrudgingly attending his wife's holiday work party and being introduced to a colleague who does not remember him. Spacey responds, "It's okay, I wouldn't remember me either."
Thomas Newman, who did the score for this movie, could not have done a better job of matching the mood of integrating scene content with music. "Amusing, yet brooding" is what screenwriter Alan Ball comments of the music in one of the many Extras on the DVD. The instrumental sound track gets plenty of playing time in my car's CD player. Catch more of Thomas Newman's music in the HBO series "Six Feet Under". This movie is so much more than a man's "mid-life" crisis which is a common synopsis I hear when speaking to people about it. It's about fears, doubts, and insecurities that we all have but are too often afraid to express. What I enjoy mostly about this movie is its honesty. That's what makes it so appealing to the viewer because there are numerous scenes in which actors think or display behavior most people only keep to themselves or would only share with someone extremely close to them. And many of these behaviors are delivered with well written, witty dialogue. Hats off to Sam Mendes and Alan Ball for the highly creative juxtaposition of humor and drama which are what make this movie a "must" for anyone's home DVD collection.