Pretty good but deeply flawed

Rating: 6/10 (20 April 2001)

American Beauty tries really hard to be a intense commentary on modern society in the so-called "civilized world". The portrait of a disillusioned middle-aged man given by Kevin Spacey is superb and deserved the praise it got. Although his character shows obvious psychological and moral flaws, one could only sympathize for his decision to choose sincerity as a cure to his disillusioned life. Spacey's character, the flawed man that conveys more humanity than anybody else, is nothing new to the cinema industry: think about One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (which is, anyway, a far superior film) for instance. But while not revolutionary, American Beauty is very well crafted around Spacey, and the rest of the actors give out fairly good performance. On the psychological level, this is a film about comprehension and respect, and a beautiful one.
However, on the social level, this film fails miserably. And that's where "beauty" comes in.
Such lines as "there's so much beauty in the world" and the infamous plastic bag scene are absurd and irritating. There's nothing beautiful in a piece of trash that pollutes our environment, there's not that much beauty in the world anymore considering that we keep destroying it, considering that numerous species of animals seem doomed to extinction, and especially considering that none of the characters in the movie seems to care about it AT ALL. The plastic bag scene would have worked with a bird... or even with a rat, if one wants to find beauty in what most people can't... but with a plastic bag it's just fluffy and hypocritical. Fight Club - another movie that explored the ground of psychological disillusion and flaws in our society - got into a lot controversy about its violence when, in fact, was delivering a much more carefully constructed message about respect for nature and what our society has to avoid.
In other words, this movie works in a beautiful way around the human characters, but all it pulls out is a "enjoy your life" message that ultimately seems, if not in contrast with what the movie was saying in the beginning, very mild and inappropriate anyway.
That's why I think this movie is interesting, but not a masterpiece at all. Not even close.
6/10