Excellent, Thought Provoking Movie

Rating: 10/10 (9 September 2005)

American Beauty is a modern masterpiece and rightly deserves it place in the top 250. The cinema has been producing a lot of terrible movies lately. This one stands with the great ones such as The Shawshank Redemtion, The Green Mile, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Se7en and the list goes on. There is nothing wrong with this movie. The acting, directing, score, mood, cinematography are all superb.
Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is suffering his mid-life crisis. His bitchy wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) is annoying him. His moody daughter Jane (Thora Birch) isn't helping. Things start to change when he sees Jane's cheer leading friend Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) at a school function. He starts having fantasies of a naked Angela covered in red roses. His actions that follow change his family for the worst.
Sam Mendes has created something that will stick with the viewers of this wonderful movie. We witness are family that looks perfect on the outside crumble into to something horrific. How one person's actions can effect everyone around him. Kevin Spacey is superb in his role as the unstable husband/father. He portrays him so well his character is disturbing and we kind of feel sorry for him but at the same time we don't. Annette Bening is great as the wife/mother who we really don't like but feel sorry for. Thora Birch is also great as the daughter who has developed a crush on her neighbour. The supporting cast is great.
5/5.