Even those with Attention-Deficit disorder won't be bored but is it memorable?

Rating: 7/10 (17 April 2002)

When I go to the movies and see a film from the American family genre I expect that it's going to give me a slice of the current reality of family values. Nice try American Beauty but your shoes cannot fill the likes of Ordinary People. The fact is that Ordinary People existed long before Terms of Endearment, The Ice Storm, and American Beauty and it got everything right. It was real. I can see how some families play favorites and suffer the ramifications of a child's death so much that they forget that they still have a son who is alive and well and dying for attention. That said American Beauty exists as a trifle that achieves some level of greatness but is far too unrealistic to be considered 20 years from now.
Consider how Lester Burnham is a pediophile who loves to get naked in his garage while he lifts his weights. Consider how he gives a long and strange speech about oral sex to his boss to get severance pay and then winds up working at a fast food restaurant. Does this remind you of your father? Or for that matter how Annette Bening is a materialistic mother who would rather have her Italian sofa for all of her "future guests" to see than accept her husband's long awaited advances. Huh? Did I miss something? There is nothing American or human for that matter about these characters. They are lifeless and soulless and they exist only as cartoons. Their actions make no sense.
When you take the time to rent Ordinary People you see a slice of the reality of the American family. Donald Sutherland is a tax attorney who allows his son to make mistakes along the way but never ever gives up on him. Aren't the majority of baby-boomer fathers like that? Mary Tyler Moore plays Beth Jarrett as one of the coldest and meanest mothers ever to grace cinema. She plays favorites with her boys and leaves all of her love in the grave with her deceased son. Don't a lot of parents who have lost children behave as though a part of them died as well?
American Beauty achieves something unique but it's not something I'll be pondering 20 years down the road. Kevin Spacey is brilliant with his role but you can truly tell that he was trying to make human a man who simply wasn't written as anything more than a caricature. Annette Bening over-acts throughout the film and she simply doesn't know that we get it already, your a selfish and psychotic shrew! The cinematography is excellent though I often ask myself how many roses died before this film was considered a wrap. Thora Birch proves here and later in Ghost World that she can act with the best of them. American Beauty does entertain and there is never a dull moment. Does it matter and is it memorable though in the long term?
8/10