Pure Genius

Rating: 10/10 (15 July 2005)

Every so often a movie comes along that totally changes the way people define a good movie. Usually its an action flick, like the Matrix, that uses some new camera work combined with stunning visuals and everyone calls it a masterpiece. This movie, American Beauty, is truly a work of art. Every frame, every line carefully crafted by rookie director Sam Mendes. There are no battle scenes, no technology. It is just a family in suburbia.
This movie should affect everyone who sees it because it is true for us all. American Beauty is actually a social satire of suburban America. These people have an image of what they are "supposed" to be implanted in their brains. One day Lester (Kevin Spacey), snaps out of it. Lester realizes there is more out there than a dead end job, a wife who bosses him around and is obsessed with material possessions, but more importantly Lester realizes there is more in him. As Lester starts to change himself, it also affects his environment. His wife Carolyn (Annette Benning) is totally thrown off keel by his actions. Lester has discovered that they are not the average middle class suburban family but a completely unique group of human beings. When he tries to get this message across to Carolyn, she rejects him, has an affair, and convinces herself she is the victim. Lester and Carolyn's message and the main message of the movie is that we all wear masks, put up facades. And unless we become ourselves, we can never truly be happy. It is said multiple times in the film that it would be terrible to be ordinary.
Now, there is a second message. A parallel story is being told. That of Lester's daughter Jane and her boyfriend Ricky. While these two stories are deeply intertwined and connect with each other, Ricky and Jane's message is equally important. Ricky lives in a world of beauty. Beauty is everywhere and in everything. Jane, who at the beginning of the film believes she is ordinary and plain, is brought into this world by Ricky and is shown how much she has to offer. Their message is that there is beauty in everything and all you have to do is look for it.
To make a film of such deep content, it takes a skilled cast and crew to come across as not preachy. Director Sam Mendes (Road to Perdition) has a long and successful career ahead of him. He was able to draw such subtle performances from a magnificent cast and then tie it all together with a tremendous score by Thomas Newman. Alan Ball, another fairly new name, gives a screen play with such audacity, wit, and deeper meaning its almost scary. And of course any review of American Beauty would not be complete without mentioning Kevin Spacey. Before I saw this movie I didn't think it could get much better than his role as Verbal Kint in the Usual Suspects. He was better in American Beauty. This is a tremendous actor in the role of a lifetime. This is one of the finest cinematic achievements I've ever witnessed, and there wasn't one explosion.