Touching and Funny! At the same time!

Rating: 10/10 (11 March 2010)

When I first heard about "American Beauty", my friends (that can't absorb any complexity of a movie without calling it weird), told me that it was a waste of time, well, they were wrong!
The characters in this film are memorable, even if sometimes they sound cartoonish. Spacey, as I expected, is wonderful, ironic, and depressed sometimes and, to watch his turn from dominated husband to a triumphant and happy person is a great experience, I wanted him to send everybody to hell, but the movie showed me that it really didn't matter anymore to him.
The directing in this movie is very successful too, it chooses first person narrative sometimes, and the movie would not have been the same if they haven't done this.
We also have great character studies in it, like Fits (Bentley) and Col. Frank (Cooper),I really didn't expect his turn in the end...
The end of this movie, although some may say it's silly, is very moving and profound, when I finished watching this movie, I had no words to describe what it meant to me. Look at the last lines: "I guess I could be pretty angry about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life...". I dare you to do better than that!
Verdict: With great performances, script and directing, it just doesn't need anything else...