Does happiness come with freedom?

Rating: 10/10 (27 March 2003)

I'm writing this comment for anybody who has not yet seen this film yet and is thinking of doing so.
American Beauty is quite an astonishing achievement for director Sam Mendes but in many ways, the media have created quite a false image of this movie and I think it's important to be aware of this before you watch it.
A lot of reviews of the film seem to depict it as a modern-day comic satire, or at best a typical comedy-drama with a little more flare than usual. It's so much more than that, and anything funny in this movie has enormous subtext which, frankly, has no comic value whatsoever.
What screenwriter Alan Ball has created in this film is essentially, seven characters, desperately unhappy in their own way, and imprisoned in lives where they really don't want to be. At the forefront of this is Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a 40-year-old, frustrated and depressed individual, who works a job he hates and is stuck in a marriage to a career-driven, money-obsessed drama queen Caroline (Annette Benning). Lester is unhappy because of the way his life started out with such promise and hope, and has crumbled into this mundane and pointless existence. Meanwhile, Caroline is unhappy because, despite her drive for success in career and life, things tend not to work out for her, not aided by her husband's cynicism towards her attitude and the complete lack of harmonics in their family. Their marriage is on the rocks but Caroline has no way out because, despite every clash of opinions, there is legally nothing wrong with Lester. The two have a daughter, Jane (Thora Birch). Lester describes her at the beginning of the film as 'a pretty typical teenager- angry, insecure, confused' but Jane's problems are slightly more complicated. Firstly, she's not happy at home. Neither of her parents satisfies her as a role model. On one hand, she has the depressed and quite pathetically frustrated father, and on the other, the self-obsessed career woman. Neither of them has any idea about Jane or how to talk to her. Meanwhile, Jane's best friend, Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) adds to both Jane's and Lester's unhappiness when Lester develops an obsession over her. Consequently, Jane's insecurities heighten at the fact that Angela is far more important to Lester than Jane has ever been, and meanwhile, Angela compensates for her own insecurities by being outwardly flirty and talking about how sexy she knows she is in order to make herself feel good, while deep down she knows how 'ordinary' she really is. And finally there's the Fitts family next door. This is led by the abusive Colonel Frank (Chris Cooper) who in reality is suffering from serious psychological problems and has deep emotional trauma. However, he avoids confronting this by immersing himself and his family in a world of 'structure and discipline'. When this structure and discipline collapse, he loses control. His wife Barbara (Allison Janney) is possibly the most unhappy character of the film, terrified and nervous beyond repair by the life forced upon her by her husband. We don't see a lot of her in the film but when we do see her, we see one of the most squalid and bleak existences ever put on the screen. She is quiet and unaware of things around her, all the while too petrified to live a life of any sort. And finally, their son Ricky (Wes Bentley) is a drug dealer by trade who manages to keep his secret dealings out of knowledge of his father by covering them with ordinary teenage jobs. One of the most famous and interesting parts of the film is the aspect in which Ricky uses his hand-held camera to film things, including the Burnhams next door through their open windows. Ricky possibly has the most to be unhappy about, having also spent two years in a mental hospital, but he isn't, simply because he looks at the big picture, and realises, through filming the everyday, like the famous shot of the plastic bag caught in a circling wind, that there is SO much beauty in the world. And what we realise when we watch the film is that most of this beauty so often goes uncaptured. This is epitomised in the film when Ricky, in filming, continually ignores the outwardly stunning Angela and focuses entirely on Jane; her inward and unhappy exterior containing far more beauty than the facade created by Angela. There is a beautiful scene early in the movie when Angela stands at Jane's Window in her underwear and performs an exotic dance for Ricky who is filming from the next house. I won't spoil it but remember I said it's a beautiful scene. The reason I felt I had to analyse the characters in this way is to enlighten the fact that all the movie is is a portrait of unhappiness, although pure perfection in film-making. The subtext and imagery used by Mendes is immaculately captured, and while on the surface it seems to be just a satirical look at everyday life in the American suburbs, there is so much going on below the surface.
The film instructs us to 'look closer' but when we look closer, all we see is more to examine. I could go on for hours about how brilliant the performances, or the music, or any number of things that make this film a masterpiece. But I'm not going to. All I will say is that it has a truth and beauty to it that can never be matched, and provides insights into so many aspects of our lives we can't even begin to count them. 5 stars out of 5.