Over-hyped, but still an excellent film. Shining stars and imaginative script.

Rating: 8/10 (9 February 2000)

This film certainly looked like an American Beauty, the influence of the singular Cohen was evident through the dreamy scenes of Kevin Spacey and Mena Suvari which were just delicious to the eye.
The first half of the film didn't raise too much from the audience, and it wasn't until Lester really began turning his life around did we all begin to warm to it. There seemed to be a lot of missed humour, maybe it was all too American for the Scottish audience. From there on in it was an excellent film.
Spacey returned a good performance, although I thought he only really shone during the final scenes. Annette Benning, however, was fabulous, I think this is one of the best performances I've ever seen from her. "I'm the King!" scene with Peter Gallagher was one of the funniest in the film.
The ending caused quite a discussion in our group as to why, but I won't go into that here. Suffice to say I think this film is over-hyped, but still deserves much, much praise. Go see it.