Escaping the Human Condition

Rating: Null/10 (22 February 2000)

This is a mordant tale of suburban angst in an age where success is mostly about money and moral compromise. Probably not everybody has a spouse having it off with the King (her real estate competitor), conceives a passion for one of his daughter's school friends (a ditzy cheerleader who does however look great covered in rose petals), has a paranoid military type move in next door, finds his daughter, who despises her parents has become involved with Colonel Crazy's weird son, and loses his job, like Lester Burnham.

No wonder Lester tells us by voice over at the beginning `in less than a year's time I'll be dead'. A terminal mid-life crisis, in fact. Yet there is an element of universality about all this. The only work the economic machine offers a talented writer is doing P.R. brochures. Comfort and security are provided to those who conform, in thought and action, to the ruthless commercial ethic, like the rutting real estate brokers. Clever mavericks, like the mad marine's son, are able to play the system they reject. Honest rebels are shot.
Kevin Spacey is fine as Lester, and I thought Annette Bening, though a bit full-on, gave us a good portrait as the adulterous wife, stimulated by sales performance rather than intimacy. The kids were all great too, especially Wes Bentley as Ricky, the weird boy next door, who turned what could have been a blue-eyed monster into a sympathetic character. As a mainstream picture from a big studio plenty of money has been spent on the production, itself something of a commentary. The direction has a light touch and we are not battered with the obvious.
At the end I wondered if the punches had had been pulled somewhat, especially where Lester's passion for the cheerleader is concerned. Wasn't he just a bit too nice? For that matter wasn't his wife just a bit too nasty? Well, it's a comedy, I laughed a good deal, and thanked my lucky stars I don't work in P.R. or have a wife in real estate.