A suburban Francis Macomber - Contains Spoilers

Rating: 7/10 (25 June 2001)

It's pretty clear that Alan Ball was inspired by the Hemmingway short story, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" when he wrote AMERICAN BEAUTY. Obviously Ball wanted to explore more themes than Hemmingway, and he paints on a broader canvass, but the essential plot is the same: a sad wimp of a man with an unloving and unfaithful wife gets his life together and achieves happiness on the same day he is shot in the back of the head and killed.
A significant departure in Ball's story is that the wife clearly intends to kill her husband but is pre-empted by the repressed homosexual neighbor, Colonel Fitts, whereas Macomber is killed by his wife in a manner that could be, but is assumed not to be, an accident. The motivation for Macomber's wife and Burnham's wife to commit murder is essentially the same: they have both lost their power over their formerly spineless husbands.
Ball attempts to avoid Hemmingway's misogyny by giving the impression that Burnham's wife learns from her husband's death. After discovering him, she breaks into tears and throws her gun in the trash. Why it might be desirable to disarm oneself when a family member was killed by person or persons unknown, who might still be lurking in the shadows, is never explained. Given the underlying politics of the film one might conclude that Burnham's wife "finds" herself by getting rid of the evil gun. Another possibility is that the image we get throughout the movie of the wife as a self-absorbed idiot is just reinforced at the end and that she doesn't grow at all.
Despite the weak resolution of the wife's motivation/growth, the other significant characters are well drawn, if predictable. The Colonel's son as an intelligent, artistic, and responsible young man who happens to be a big-time drug dealer is a nice touch.
Ultimately, Kevin Spacey's performance is what elevates this film to must see status. I give it a 7 out of 10.