Much better than the usual Hollywood offal.

Rating: Null/10 (28 February 2001)

First, I must admit that I despise most contemporary Hollywood movies. I've also found that when a film receives multiple Academy Awards, it's usually a testament to its mediocrity, simply because it had to be rather broad and sensationalistic to have mass appeal to Americans. Consequently, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that American Beauty had a goodly amount of style and substance, as well as some skilled performances.
I had to laugh when reading comments from other reviewers who castigated it for being predictable, who were appalled by its supposed vulgarity or who complained that it was "out of touch with the reality of American lives". I'm sorry, but that's just absurd. Kevin Spacey's well-nuanced character is far closer to typical than most men would care to admit. In real life, do middle-class, middle-aged American men really fantasize about having sex with young women? Do they smoke pot (or wish they could)? Do they masturbate? Do they wish they could chuck in their meaningless jobs? Do they want to live the life they had when they were 18? Do they dream about starting over? Of course they do. In real life, are there happy gay couples? Homophobic military men with repressed homosexual tendencies? Women who try to control or cheat on their husbands? Teenage girls who flirt with men to manipulate them? Of course there are. One can hardly blame a film for depicting such things. Very few of us live in some idealized, Norman Rockwell-type American existence. Appropriately, the greatest films ever made (by Bergman, Truffaut, Malle, Kurosawa, whoever) don't pretend that we live that way either. American Beauty may not be in that league (after all, it was the director's first film), but it stands heads above the vast majority of "important" American films of the past 20 years.
Certainly, there are a few false notes in American Beauty. A couple of characters are a little two-dimensional, a couple are a little over-the top. There are a few plot turns that rely upon people being irrational or oblivious to the obvious. And yes, there are a few predictable moments. Still, as imperfect as American Beauty may be, it is no less so than our real lives. What it offers is simply a look at a man who attempts redemption, and the effects that has on those around him. Two things that American Beauty is NOT are maudlin or judgmental.
Kevin Spacey rightly deserves acclaim for his work, as do Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, director Mendes, cinematographer Conrad Hall and composer Thomas Newman. While American Beauty has its flaws, so do our lives. If anything, it is refreshing that a "major" American film could get away with being honest about the hopes and imperfections of -- as Spacey's character says, our "stupid little lives".