This movie is why we go to the theater...

Rating: Null/10 (28 September 1999)

There are times when I lose hope for film as an art-form. I see one bad movie after another and I say to myself "I'm not going to waste my money at the theater anymore.", then a movie like American Beauty comes along and renews my faith in film. In a cinematic world where scripts are recycles like soda cans, American Beauty takes a seemingly familiar topic (suburban repression) and lets us know that we "ain't seen nothing yet". This film molds itself to the individual personality of the audience member and hits whichever nerve is the most deeply raw. Most movies are a pastime, American Beauty is an experience.
If you want to see an equally masterful - but far more disturbing - take on this same material, rent Todd Solondz's "Happiness".