*drool*

Rating: 10/10 (2 October 1999)

This film was billed as a comedy, and it is more effective as a comedy than any film I've ever seen before. Here's a note to anyone writing a screenplay. If you are writing a comedy, please take notes from this film because the jokes are original. I don't know if I heard very many jokes in this film that I had heard anywhere else.
More importantly about this film, though, is that it deals with something that is very close to my heart -- the perception of beauty. People think of different things when they think of what beautiful is. Some people think of Claudia Schiffer. Some people think of a flower in the middle of a vast grassy field blowing in the wind. Some people think beautiful is a personality trait. Whatever you believe it is, this film effectively deals with our perceptions of the world and how unimportant a lot of the big things are in the grand scheme of things. "Look closer..." is what the movie is all about.
Now, I'm not ruining ANYTHING by telling you this, but if you don't want to know... stop reading! It's my policy not to ruin a movie unless I don't want you to go see it. kevin spacey dies. He tells you within the first minute of the film in the form of an omnipotent voice-over... almost a voice from the grave really. Now, I really love Kevin Spacey. His films are always intense, and his acting style is to die for. His character is probably more dynamic than any other character in the film not considering that at the top of the movie he is living and that at the end he is dead. Oh, and for you ladies... you get to see his butt.
Annette Bening plays his wife. They don't get along very well, and they don't mind showing it. She also has this obsession with having things very particular. Her performance was a little overly dramatic for my tastes, but that probably meshes well with her character. Certainly you know someone in your life who acts very fake in front of other people, but is a completely different person when not. That is her character.
Thora Birch (the daughter) and Mena Suvari (the daughter's friend) have different views on life and have completely different personalities. Mena Suvari, who you may remember from American Pie, is a very luscious teenage sex kitten. Thora Birch is a depressed-with-her-parents, don't-know-how-to-escape person who is going on a journey into free thought with her new neighbor (played by Wes Bentley). Both of their characters are part of what the movie hinges on, but it is even more predominant in Birch's character as Spacey's daughter. Remember, he's gonna die at some point.
I'll spare giving the movie away, but if you have ever asked yourself, "what is the meaning of life," then this movie will without a doubt answer it. It is very good, and I will definitely be going to see it again.
As a first in my entire reviewing career, I've decided to give this film 10 stars. It has an OUTSTANDING score, and the plot was terrific. This was most definitely the best movie of the year (knocking the Sixth Sense down from the perch).