This is the real world

Rating: 10/10 (8 December 1999)

This movie is like looking into a mirror. You are faced with making hard decisions everyday, thinking of how you are going to make it, without being physically, and mentally, tortured by the sickness of it all.

"American Beauty" is a fully-flexed simulation of what the world is like, outside of the movie screen. We all see what this, "beauty" is like, we just do not want to admit it.
The acting portrayed simplistic behavior of someone who cannot take the pain. Kevin Spacey seemed to reach that point well with his superb acting skills. Annette Bening reflected her mother-like personality as the typical, over-the-edge mom who has completley lost it. Thora Birch expressed teenage emptyness. She knew, somewhere in herself, that a normal teenager, acts like how Jane Burnham acts.
As it was funny in the begining, I chose not to laugh at anything else after the first half of the movie. I was too into it. I was psyched! But I never ever, ever, walked out of a movie, so stunned, shocked, and impressed for any other movie in my entire life of watching the silver screen.
To anyone who watched this movie, you have seen something that no other director could possibly do.

Cheers to Sam Mendel and Alan Ball.