Lester Burnham has everything he wants, except a life

Rating: 9/10 (13 December 1999)

American Beauty is the latest of films that attempt to dissect the vapidity and repression of suburban America. It is also the movie that the others hint at becoming, a movie where the walls of repression have been stripped, and both the viewers and characters are left to watch the remnants of what remains. Unlike Ordinary People and The Ice Storm, we see early and often the misery these people live with, and while Mary Tyler Moore remains ice cold throughout Ordinary People, Annette Benning and the rest of American Beauty have a complete meltdown before our very eyes.	When the story opens, we learn of the tragedy that is about to unfold during the course of the movie, and we also see one of the most desperate characters in movie history, Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey). On the surface, all looks well. He has a good job, and a beautiful wife and daughter. The problem is that he is despised by all three, and confides early on that he feels dead. His wife (played by Annette Bening), a self absorbed real estate agent, is more willing than her husband to play the game of suburban respectability, but is clearly equally as miserable. Benning plays this character so well that you completely forget how charming she was in The American President. Their daughter (played by newcomer Thora Birch) plays typical teenage angst with such aplomb that it actually seems fresh and heartfelt on the screen.	Each of the Burnhams enters into a relationship in the movie that helps each feel more alive. Lester meets a teenage friend of his daughter, that ignites a passion in him that he thought has long since been dead. Annette Bening's character meets her match in real estate king played by Peter Gallager, who is quite possibly even more self absorbed and greedy than her. Finally, daughter Jane meets an enigmatic boy next door, who films her every move, sells pot to her father, and has a homophobic, straight laced military father (Chris Cooper). The ironic thing is that he is the happiest, most stable character in the movie.	While these three romances ignite passion in the Burnham clan, they each highlight the vapidity of their alleged family. This leads to some shocking and surprisingly funny scenes where suburbia goes under attack, to the relish of both the characters and the audience. All this while Lester begins his mid life crisis. He starts working out at the suggestion of his love object (Lena Suvari, as the sister's friend), quits his job and black mails his pension, and starts buying pot from his daughter's new boyfriend. While these actions are on the whole at the very least unwise, we see why Lester has made these choices, and we see his desperation turn to hope because of them.	We also see some very interesting cinematic decisions being made, particularly with the color red. It is used to highlight roses, lips, doors, and blood, and eventually we see that the red comes to mean beauty and hope for the characters, even in the final scene, when tragedy takes place.	And the final scene. Because we know the tragedy will happen later on, the question becomes how the tragedy takes place, and not will it. The plot has a lot of fun teasing us with this information, and we are interested ourselves, until we reach that conclusion: It doesn't matter. Who eventually causes the tragedy isn't important. What is important is that there are many characters desperate and sad enough to cause it. When we realize that, we see what Lester sees. We see the red as hope.