It isn't like fooling a American audience would be that hard

Rating: 7/10 (14 February 2003)

First off, the idea of sounding the Death Gong for suburbia had been done perfectly a year earlier by Todd Solondz's "Happiness". No one else could improve his ideas. "Donnie Darko" had to incorporate Time Travel and a demonic rabbit to take Todd's ideas further.
Secondly, all of the characters in "American Beauty" are horrible cardboard cut-outs of human beings. And that WASN'T intentional. It was just bad writing. A self-loathing homophobic ex-military character? How is that not a stereotype? Hey, Allen Ball, how long did it take you to come up with that one? Or the career minded mother who has NO redeaming qualities? Mena Suvari's character was the only one with any substance, but she looks like a martian and I can't buy into the idea that Lester is really attacted to her or what she stands for.
Thirdly, the heavy hand of the director or author's voice manifests in the character who constantly carries around a CAMERA and NEVER MAKES A MISTAKE. That is a poorly conceived and executed idea. It's like they think their audience is dumb and needs to be spoon fed principles of symbolism. I can picture the process of creating that character. I bet Mr. Ball and Mr. Mendes thought it was a great idea. That's a huge part of the problem.
There is a principle in writing called "Killing Your Baby". If you have an idea you think is good, the only way you can be sure is if you dismantle the idea. If you can dismantle it, and the idea retains its goodness, then the idea is good. In the dismantling process, you can find the problems in the idea and fix them.
Some of the problems with Ricky Fitts are a little obvious, like the fact that he is a dramatic character who is unfaltering and without any tangible conflict. Oooh, he hates his ex-military disciplinarian father. Ooooh. It's just another two-dimensional aspect. A truer conflict would be if he resented the homophobia and disciplinarianism but also loved his father very, very much.
If anything, American Beauty shows that you can take a horrible script, give to talented actors, dress it up with slow fades, pans, and tracking shots, top it off with a great soundtrack, and fool millions of Americans into thinking it is a great work of art. Really what you have is a pretentious, heavy handed, and dumbed down soap opera quality flick. At least the title has some irony.
btr
Dave Hendrick