American Boring Cliché

Rating: Null/10 (17 October 1999)

When 'welcome to the dollhouse' (which I didn't particularly even like) and other similar movies in which the characters began to consider their personal condition more began to gain popularity, I was really into that. I was sick of the blockbuster phenomena and was glad that films like 'clerks' were becoming accessible. However, through time, more and more and more and more of these movies came out and next thing I knew, America was ga-ga for self-indulgent film-making. Which I don't think is wrong, but I think the manner in which it is done on 'american beauty' is a bit (a) melodramatic and (b) copied. 'American Beauty' is an amalgamation of, follow me here closely, happiness, office space and ordinary people. In previous reviews, people mentioned annette bening's character being similar to mary tyler moore's character in 'ordinary people'--but I find that the family next door was closer to that of timothy hutton on 'o.p.' The neighbour's father in this one (I'm awful with names) is more like mary tyler moore's character though he may have a bit of the father from 'shine' in him as well. I did not dislike this movie necessarily, but I felt ...and still feel...that this movie is the defining film where people will say years from now, "Boy, that american beauty sure did destroy the arty nihilistic films of the 90s." It took what was more significant in indepedent film and blew it wide open for the backstreet boys generation. The relationships were poorly developed, the dialogue was stilted, and the misunderstood artist characters are overdone. It wasn't a bad movie--it really wasn't--but these angsty films are becoming too commonplace... oh well, at least they're better than 'strange days.'